Non-Mormons Doing Mormon Studies

How do scholars without a personal background in the LDS church navigate the waters of insider/ousiderness in Mormon Studies? How can outsiderness be an asset?


Max Mueller

Professor of Religious Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln;

Katherine Mohrman

2017-2018 Mormon Studies Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Virginia

“Mormons have been persecuted and ridiculed and attacked, both by everyday Americans and the American government, and so even today Mormons still remain in a lot of ways wedded to that understanding of a persecuted, isolated religious minority.”



Ann Taves

Virgil Cordano Chair of Catholic Studies, UC Santa Barbara

“Some people think that scholarship on Mormonism is kind of a closed world. I can understand that in a way but that hasn’t been my reaction.”