INTERNATIONAL MORMON STUDIES: MORE HELP WANTED!

This is a report AND a call for input going forward from the directors of the International Mormon Studies Book Project, launched in February 2013 to encourage the expansion of Mormon studies research throughout the Mormon South (i.e. outside of North America).

Part I: Report on IMS book placements

The IMS Book Project organizers express our gratitude for the many generous individuals and institutions who have contributed to the cause of improving the quality and quantity of Mormon studies resources outside of North America.

Our initial goal, for which we raised nearly $3000, was to build a foundation for Mormon studies by placing seminal works at universities where scholars were interested in using them. We received direct donations of books on Amazon.com (shipped directly to the Mormon Studies program at CGU, thanks to the kind assistance of Patrick Mason). The LDS Church History Department generously furnished the project with four complete sets of the Joseph Smith Papers volumes.

We also raised money through sales of stylish “Chinese Mormon ties” brought from Hong Kong by Melissa Inouye and Australian paraphernalia donated by Sherrie Gavin (sold from a corner of the Dialogue booth at the 2013 MHA meeting in Layton, thanks to the cheerful hospitality of Kristine Haglund). We received an especially generous overseas purchase order from the mission presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joy and Phil McMullin, who purchased a tie or scarf for each one of their missionaries. Alexandria Griffin and Jon England, then masters students at Claremont Graduate University, now Ph.D. students at Arizona State University, held it all together as the project’s main facilitators.

In November 2013, Jon England loaded up the heavy tomes and sent a full collection of every book on the International Mormon Studies Amazon wishlist to the French Institute for Research on Mormonism at the University of Bordeaux. Dr. Carter Charles, one of the founding members of the Institute, asked us to “send our sincere thanks to all those who contributed.” Dr. Bernadette Rigal-Cellard, also a founding member and the professor of American religions at the University of Bordeaux, wrote: “Our collection on Mormonism is thus tremendously enriched.” Pierre Vendassi, the third founding member of the Institute, later participated in the first conference on Mormonism in Asia held at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley in March 2014 and is currently spearheading an effort to produce a special issue of Mormon studies essays in a major European journal.

Around the same time, thanks to the efforts of IMS organizer Sherrie Gavin, we were in touch with Dr. Neil Pembroke, the convener of the Studies in Religion program at the University of Queensland, Australia, where some but not all of the IMS wishlist books were already in the catalogue. John East, the University of Queensland head librarian, requested the following titles with thanks:

Mormon Lives: A Year in the Elkton Ward by Susan Buhler Taber

Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives by Marie Cornwall, Tim Heaton, Lawrence Young

Proclamation to the People: Nineteenth Century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier by Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Reid Neilson, R. Lanier Britsch

Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-Day Saints, 1890-1930 by Thomas Alexander

The Rise of Mormonism by Rodney Stark, Reid Neilson

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman

The most recent donations of the IMS Book Project are slated for delivery this week to Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand, where Dr Selwyn Katene, historian of LDS Maori, is based, Waikato University in Hamilton, New Zealand, where Dr Robert Joseph is based, and the University of Auckland, where IMS organizer Melissa Inouye is based and where a new religious studies program is in the process of being formed. These donations consist of the remaining Joseph Smith Papers volumes and seven remaining books from the Amazon.com wishlist.

Part II: Call for more good ideas

After placing donated books, the International Mormon Studies Working Group is looking for input on how to most efficiently use resources to facilitate global Mormon studies scholarship. In the process of advertising the first book drive it was suggested that perhaps shipping physical books around the world to sit on physical shelves in library buildings was not as efficient as digital distribution, a comment that we have taken to heart after three expensive international shipping bills. We would like to hear your creative solutions for problem of getting Mormon studies resources to Southern scholars who need them.

We currently have about $1600 remaining from the initial round of fundraising. How could these funds (and any future funds) best be used to advance quality global scholarship on Mormonism?

Should we:

Contribute to an international conference on Mormonism like the “Global Crossroads: Mormonism and Asia” conference put on by Brittany Chapman and Liz Heath in Berkeley in March 2014?

Fund a prize for the best article published on Southern Mormonism by a scholar based in the Mormon South?

Give research grants so that scholars living far away from Mormon studies archives can hire research assistants to consult documents at the Church History Department, etc.?

Purchase/arrange some sort of institutional subscription so that “IMS network” members can access digital versions of Mormon studies books and articles without hitting paywalls?

Give travel assistance to international scholars presenting their work at the annual MHA or AAR meetings in North America?

While we’re on the subject of money, how about the question of how to get more of it for this very important cause!?

Please comment with your input. If you would like to join the IMS Working Group, we welcome you! The harvest is great, but the laborers are few. Please send an email to [email protected].