{"id":30851,"date":"2014-06-26T06:12:09","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T11:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=30851"},"modified":"2014-06-26T17:27:21","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T22:27:21","slug":"the-laura-f-willes-center-for-book-of-mormon-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2014\/06\/the-laura-f-willes-center-for-book-of-mormon-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mi<\/a>What I tend to lack in quality, I hope\u00a0to make up for with quantity. And what I lack in training and credentials, I hope to gather and borrow.<\/p>\n

In many ways, these maxims have guided the time I’ve invested in a\u00a0project called the Mormon Theology Seminar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Seminar takes a very specific tack in relation to the work of Mormon theology: it privileges a hermeneutic approach that takes close readings of scripture as a critical\u00a0starting point for doing theology and it organizes this work as a collaborative venture.<\/p>\n

Close and careful readings of scripture can show us things that we haven’t seen before and seeing new things can\u00a0open room for theological exploration.<\/p>\n

Working collaboratively on a text – typically with 6-8 other people over a period of weeks or months – both increases the likelihood of seeing new things and then tempers the quality of the theological work\u00a0that follows.<\/p>\n

Last week, the seventh<\/a> Mormon Theology Seminar successfully concluded.<\/p>\n

Seven seminars, now.<\/p>\n

If we can keep gathering 6-8 people per seminar and continue conducting seminars for the next 30-40 years, I hope to have compiled\u00a0something whose sheer size (100 seminars? 500 contributors? criss-crossing the whole of Mormon scripture?) will leave a deep theological footprint in Mormon Studies that could\u00a0endure for\u00a0hundreds of years.<\/p>\n

This seventh seminar, though, was special and it marks a turning point in the larger project.<\/p>\n

For the first time, the seminar was conducted live and in person over a period of two weeks. We spent the first week collectively reading 1 Nephi 1 verse by verse and word by word. And we spent the second week workshopping individual papers based on that joint effort.<\/p>\n

(Podcasts of the papers will soon be available both through the Seminar website and through the Maxwell Institute podcast<\/a>. And plans to publish the whole collection are also in full swing. Also, we’re currently planning a second two-week seminar for next summer. We’ll issue a call for applications in the fall. Perhaps you’ll join us!)<\/p>\n

It was a remarkable (unparalleled, for me) professional experience. I’m especially grateful to the others who participated and made it possible: Jim Faulconer,\u00a0George Handley, Brian Hauglid, Ben Peters, Julie Smith, Joseph Spencer, Micha\u00ebl Ulrich, and Miranda Wilcox.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, in the end, this kind of live, two-week summer seminar was\u00a0only possible because Brian Hauglid<\/a>, the director of the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies<\/a>, invested serious resources (in both time and money) to\u00a0make it happen. And, more, it\u00a0was only possible because of the original\u00a0endowment generously gifted by the Willes family.<\/p>\n

I hope to help organize many more seminars in the years to come. And I hope to organize more than a few of those seminars in collaboration with the Willes Center.<\/p>\n

Many thanks to Brian Hauglid for believing in this project and trusting us with it.<\/p>\n

And, more, many thanks to the Willes family for believing so tangibly in the value\u00a0of Book of Mormon scholarship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What I tend to lack in quality, I hope\u00a0to make up for with quantity. And what I lack in training and credentials, I hope to gather and borrow. In many ways, these maxims have guided the time I’ve invested in a\u00a0project called the Mormon Theology Seminar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":30857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/mi-logo-gray-border.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30851"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30863,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30851\/revisions\/30863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}