Joseph Smith Papers Job Opening

Historian/Documentary Editor, Joseph Smith Papers Project-0900581

Job Description
The Joseph Smith Papers Project is engaged in producing a comprehensive edition of Joseph Smith documents featuring complete and accurate transcripts with both textual and contextual annotation. The scope of the project includes Joseph Smith’s original correspondence, revelations, journals, historical writings, sermons, legal papers, and other documents.  Besides providing the most comprehensive record of early Latter-day Saint history they will also provide insight into the broader religious landscape of the early American republic.  The Joseph Smith Papers Project is ready to hire a historian/documentary editor with the appropriate academic training, research and writing skills to edit Joseph Smith’s papers.

• 30% Document analysis: bibliographical and physical description; provenance and custodial history; research regarding textual and documentary intention, production, transmission, and reception; composition of source notes and historical introductions.
• 30%–Routine annotation: research coordination with project chronologists, cartographers, and genealogists; research and writing for chronological, geographical, and biographical notes, as well as glossary entries, organizational charts, and other forms of routine annotation.
• 30%–Explanatory annotation: general research in the relevant sources available for the volume’s period; general research regarding the major issues recurring in the volume’s documents; research and writing of footnotes to clarify, explain, or illuminate passages that are unclear, challenging, or otherwise problematic.
• 5%–Teamwork: regular participation in volume team meetings to address historical issues, coordinate research efforts, and correlate editorial treatment; occasional participation in project committees to expand or refine project resources, confront and solve new editorial problems as they arise, develop the project website, or address other project needs.
• 5%–Professional development: keeping abreast of Joseph Smith biography and early Mormon history, attending and participating in selected academic conferences on an annual basis; serving occasionally in professional associations.

Qualifications
PhD or doctoral candidate in history, religious studies, or related discipline.  Understanding of antebellum American history and major social and political themes of the time.  Demonstration of excellent writing skills, typing proficiency and facility with current technical tools for data management and production.  As the highest professional standards of documentary editing are expected of the position, including a rigorous production schedule, the applicant must exhibit the ability to work in an academic environment that requires personal initiative and collaborative competence in all aspects of the project. Professional and personal integrity required to maintain the trust and confidence of professional colleagues, department supervisors, and archivists working in other public and private repositories. Member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and worthy to hold a temple recommend.

Apply online to this position.

MSSA visits BCC

Michael McBride arranged for a panel of MSSA members to answer questions on By Common Consent, one of the most widely read Mormon-oriented blogs.  You can see the first part of this discussion here.

Mormon Media Studies Interest Group Listserve

MORMON MEDIA STUDIES INTEREST GROUP LISTSERVE:
INFORMATION AND INVITATION TO JOIN

The Mormon Media Studies Interest Group was formed 26 February 2009 by a group of faculty members in the Department of Communications at Brigham Young University. The group’s e-mail distribution list was launched 9 March 2009. It moved to a listserve format on 28 April 2009.

The group recognizes the centrality of the media to the Mormon experience, historically and in the present, and acknowledges the unique contribution that can be made to Mormon studies by focusing on media from a wide range of academic perspectives.

Specific objectives of the group include (but are not limited to) the following:

  1. to create a global community of scholars and professionals who have an interest in Mormon Media Studies, including: contemporary and historical media coverage and representation of Mormons and the LDS Church; Mormon media history; the intersection between media and Mormon culture; the embrace and use of media technologies by the LDS Church and its members; Mormon –produced messaging and public relations; the Mormon blogosphere, etc.;
  2. to facilitate communication among those who are interested in participating in an on-going conversation about Mormons and the media, and to share information and current events about this topic, including related academic research;
  3. to encourage scholarship in the field of Mormon Media Studies; to generate research questions; to facilitate collaboration among group members; and to identify outlets (refereed journals and conventions) for publication and presentation of scholarship relating to this topic.

The interest group is just in its beginning stages. As we find our way, we may expand beyond the listserve format to a blog or some other means of communication.
If you are interested in participating in this community of scholars, we welcome you. Also, if you know of others who might be interested, please invite them first to assess their interest. To be added to the list, newcomers should send an e-mail to Sherry Baker (sherry_baker@byu.edu) with an indication of name and e-mail contact information.

Q: Best sources on Mormon myth and sacred narrative?

Q: I will begin a PhD program soon on the subject of Mormon myth and sacred narrative. I wonder if I could be pointed toward any research which might have been done previously on the place of myth as stories with culturally formative power that might be categorized broadly under headings like Restoration, Revelation, Missionary Stories, and stories of healing and encouragement. These would include stories on the Pre-Existence/Pre-Mortal Life, the First Vision, the Westward Trek/Pioneer Narrative, The Plan of Salvation/Personal missionary narratives, etc. Any thoughts on previous studies that have touched on myth, story, narrative, or folklore in these areas would be appreciated.

A: We have two responses to this question. The first comes from Steven Olsen:

“My Masters paper at the University of Chicago (Anthropology, 1978) adapted a Levi-Straussian ‘structuralist’ approach to understand the cultural logic of the sacred Mormon narrative we call “The Joseph Smith Story.” A readable version of that study appears in a Dialogue article from the 1980s with the pretentious title, “Joseph Smith and the Structure of Mormon Identity.” This study will be of value to the extent that John is concerned about theory and method in his own study; it illustrates a conception and approach to the study of sacred narrative that, I believe, bears some fruit. There are certainly other possible approaches, including those used by Bert Wilson, Eric Eliason, Meg Brady, and others in their study of Mormon narrative, oral and written. From the perspective of what Clifford Geertz might call, if he were still alive, “History as a Cultural System,” there are a couple of obscure articles that may be helpful, “The Theology of Memory: Mormon Historical Consciousness” in a recent FARMS Review and “Historic Sites as Institutional Memory,” in the proceedings of a BYU symposium several years ago, both of which were written by me. Additionally, at an ASCH conference a few years ago, Stephen Stein delivered what I remember as a masterful set of preliminary reflections on the implications of Mormonism’s being a literate religion, i.e., one that is grounded in the authority of written documents, some of which record historical experience. I have never seen it in print, but he would advance our understanding of Mormonism considerably if he would do so.”

Armand Mauss also wrote a response:

“If you are in Utah, you are located right in the center of the best collections of Mormon myth and folklore in the world at the three major universities in Utah. He should start by consulting the massive bibliography compiled a decade ago by James B. Allen, Ronald W. Walker, and David L. Whittaker (editors and compilers), STUDIES IN MORMON HISTORY, 1830 – 1997 (University of Illinois Press, 2000), which will be found in the reference section of any decent library, especially in Utah. In that bibliography will be found numerous sections devoted to myth and folklore, especially on pages 651-654, 799-800, and 1095-1096. The founder and earliest collector of Mormon myth and folklore was the late Austin Fife (often with his wife Alta), so John might begin by browsing through Fife’s work, which appears in a couple of books and numerous articles. Fife’s successor would be William A. (“Bert”) Wilson, still very much alive as English professor emeritus at BYU, and author of many great articles. An up-and-coming younger scholar specializing in Mormon myth and folklore is Eric Eliason, also in the BYU English Dept. Morehead would do well to seek out Wilson and Eliason for interviews. They would give him a lot of useful guidance, not only bibliographical but also methodological. But John should do considerable browsing through the work listed in the above-mentioned bibliography before seeking out Wilson or Eliason.”

Update: Mon, 2009-04-13 10:10 — Shawn Bennion

I would also suggest contacting Eric Eliason, who has an interest in Mormon Folklore. I recall his comment that the category of “3 Nephite” Stories is among the largest in all of the study of folklore. The L. Tom Perry Special Collections at BYU has a large collection of Mormon folklore, often containing transcripts of interviews.