Research Workshop: Mormonism in Africa and the African Diaspora
October 14, 2023 | 8:30 am - 3:30 pm
A Research Workshop Hosted by the University of Virginia Mormon Studies Program
Research Workshop Schedule
8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast
9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Graduate Panel In of Honor Lester Bush: State of the Field
- Chair Kai Parker, Assistant Professor of African American Religious History (UVA)
- Panelists:
- Amadi Amitsa (Baylor)
- Grace Soelberg (BYU)
- Melodie Jackson (Maryland)
- Nicholas Shrum (UVA)
Discussion
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Keynote: “Quantitative Research” — Paul Reeve, Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies and Chair of the Department of History, University of Utah.
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 – 3:00 p.m. Introduction to the Prince Collection
- Introductory Remarks
- Brenda Gunn, Associate University Librarian for Special Collections and Preservation (UVA)
- Dr. Gregory A. Prince, “Dissertation Possibilities in the Collection”
- Free or Guided Research in the Collection
3:00 p.m. Concluding Remarks & Sample of Research Insights — Kathleen Flake, Richard Lyman Bushman Professor of Mormon Studies (UVA)
6:00 pm Annual Joseph Smith Lecture: Professor Anthea Butler, Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social Thought and Chair of Religious Studies, of the University of Pennsylvania offered the Annual Joseph Smith Lecture, entitled “Civil Religions: Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints in Civic Spaces.”
Professor Butler spoke on the role religion is playing and could constructively play in America’ moral politics.
A historian of African American and American religion, Professor Butler’s research and writing spans African American religion and history, race, politics, Evangelicalism, gender and sexuality, media, and popular culture. She is the winner of the 2022 Martin E. Marty Award for Public Understanding of Religion from the American Academy of Religion. Her most recent book is White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America. Currently Professor Butler is a co-director of the Henry Luce Foundation funded Crossroads Project for Black Religious Histories, Communities, and Cultures. She is past President of the American Society for Church history and the Society of Pentecostal Studies. A sought-after commentator, Professor Butler is an op-ed contributor for MSNBC. Her articles have also been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, and The Guardian. She has also served as a consultant to PBS series including Billy Graham, The Black Church, God in America and Aimee Semple McPherson.