What's New at BYU Studies?

 

The quick answer is, “A lot.” The longer answer is, of course, what you’re going to get next. Otherwise, this would be a very short post. Last year, 2020, was a crazy year for pretty much everyone on earth, but for BYU Studies it was a significant year. We kept the office open through the pandemic, with three or four of us showing up every day, social distancing in different rooms. At times we felt like we were the only ones in the spacious Joseph F. Smith Building, since the students and faculty were pretty much gone from March through August. And since September, BYU has not been anything close to normal. But we learned how to keep our students employed remotely, and we kept churning out good material. After publishing a more-or-less regular issue of BYU Studies Quarterly before the pandemic hit, we proceeded to publish three straight special issues, something I’m not sure we’ve ever done before.

Issue 59:2 contains the proceedings of a conference held at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, last January. The presenters, a collection of LDS and non-LDS scholars, addressed various aspects of Joseph Smith’s First Vision. The conference was, of course, a 200-year celebration of the Vision and barely squeaked in before the novel coronavirus shut down all such events. The LDS presenters included David Holland (Harvard Divinity School), our illustrious editor in chief Steve Harper (BYU), Church Historian Elder LeGrand R. Curtis, Richard Bushman (Columbia University and Claremont Graduate University), Kathleen Flake (University of Virginia), Richard Bennett (BYU), and Rachel Cope (BYU). The non-LDS presenters included Ann Taves (UC Santa Barbara), George Marsden (Notre Dame), Richard Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary), John Wigger (University of Missouri), and Peter Blodgett (Huntington Library). This issue also included a lengthy survey of First Vision art (with color images) by BYU Church history professor Anthony Sweat; an introduction to the sermon notes of Jesse Townsend, a Palmyra, New York, Presbyterian minister, by Brigham Young biographer John Turner; and an article by former BYU Studies editor in chief Jack Welch on the tangible bodies of the Father and Son. Issue 59:2 weighed in at an impressive 320 pages. So, if you are interested in seeing the First Vision from a variety of fresh angles, this issue is for you.

Our next issue, 59:3, commemorates the centenary of the nineteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the 150th anniversary of Mormon women gaining the right to vote. This issue was guest edited by Susan Howe and Katherine Kitterman and included a variety of articles on women’s suffrage and some of the personalities who made the women’s vote possible, in the United States and in Utah. Authors in this issue include Katherine Kitterman, Rebekah Ryan Clark, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Cherry B. Silver, Melinda Evans, Connie Lamb, and Anne Snyder. The issue also includes three splendid personal essays: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s “Why Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History”; Claudia L. Bushman’s “Courtship,” a surprising and entertaining account of her romance with the young and serious-minded Dick Bushman; and Richard’s “My Life in Art” (he gets the final word here but uses it to discuss his involvement in the LDS arts rather than telling his side of the courtship story).

Issue 59:4 contains the proceedings of a conference celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the dedication of the BYU Jerusalem Center. I’ll be honest. I have two sons who each spent a summer at the Jerusalem Center, so I have a personal interest in this topic, but I was surprised at how utterly fascinating this issue was to read. It features articles on the Church’s history in the Holy Land, outside perspectives on the Center, the lead-up to the dedication, and scholarly collaboration between Israeli scholars and Jerusalem Center faculty, as well as two panel discussions—one featuring faculty members who have taught at the Center and one featuring students who studied there. But the highlight of this issue, in my opinion, shines in three presentations that give fascinating background information on the difficulties the Church and BYU faced in building a “Mormon university” on Mount Scopus and the challenges the administrators still face in its day-to-day operation. These presentations are by Eran Hayet, the non-LDS Israeli executive director of the Jerusalem Center; Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, who was BYU president during the negotiations preceding and construction of the Center; and James R. Kearl, assistant to the BYU president, who has been responsible for the Jerusalem Center since June 1989. The behind-the-scenes descriptions by these three are priceless.

To say the least, it’s been a fun year at BYU Studies, even though I found myself the lone full-time editor for most of the year. Thanks to three very capable student interns, we managed to pull off these three lengthy special issues on time. And we are anxiously awaiting copies of issue 60:1, which is at press right now. It is another regular issue, but it contains several interesting articles, including one on the ethics of care that I believe is one of the most important and timely articles BYU Studies has ever published.

And that’s not all. We’re planning a special issue on the theory of evolution, another on good government, and we have many wonderful articles just waiting to see the light of day. So why don’t you go to our website and check us out. We have made all our content free online. That’s sixty-two years of great articles, essays, and book reviews.