Scholars & Saints
Scholars & Saints is the official podcast of the University of Virginia’s Mormon Studies program, housed in the Department of Religious Studies. Scholars & Saints is a venue of public scholarship that promotes respectful dialogue about Latter Day Saint traditions among laypersons and academics.
Episodes
51 episodes
BONUS | Dissertation Possibilities in the Gregory A. Prince Collection
This bonus episode of Scholars & Saints is taken from the 2023 University of Virginia Mormon Studies research workshop entitled: "Mormonism in Africa and the African Diaspora." During the workshop, biomedical pathologist and LDS historian D...
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30:45
Second-Class Saints (feat. Matt Harris)
For over a century, the LDS Church forbade Black Latter-day Saints from temple ordinances, and Black men from the priesthood. How did Black Latter-day Saints experience this discrimination, and what effects and consequences of these restriction...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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1:10:37
BONUS | "Century of Black Mormons" As Quantitative History
This bonus episode of Scholars & Saints is taken from the 2023 University of Virginia Mormon Studies research workshop entitled: "Mormonism in Africa and the African Diaspora". During the workshop, Dr. W. Paul Reeve, Simmons Chair of Mormon...
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47:25
America's Homegrown Faith (feat. Benjamin Park)
How is it that Mormonism can be considered "America's most successful, homegrown religion" and yet have undergone vast assimilation to American culture in the late 19th and 20th centuries? Dr. Benjamin Park, Associate Professor of History at Sa...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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45:19
BONUS | Civil Religions: Evangelicals and Latter-Day Saints in Civic Spaces
This bonus episode of Scholars & Saints is taken from the 2023 Ninth Annual Joseph Smith Lecture, delivered by UPenn's Dr. Anthea Butler at the University of Virginia. Click
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50:09
The Mormon Minority in Ireland (feat. Hazel O'Brien)
Global Mormonism is an ever-growing field of study for scholars as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints membership has exploded throughout the Global South, especially in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. But how has Mormonism fa...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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59:55
At the Intersection of Race and Mormon Studies (feat. W. Paul Reeve)
How did early Mormons relate with African Americans and Native Americans in the 19th Century West? This is just one of the many questions tackled by the extensive research of W. Paul Reeve, the Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies at the University ...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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47:35
From History to Mormon Studies (feat. Matthew Bowman)
What do an archeologist, historian, philosopher, and literary critic have in common? They're all members of the Department of Religion at Claremont Graduate University! Continuing our series on Mormon studies in the academy, Dr. Matthew Bowman,...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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47:59
What Is Mormon Studies? (feat. Patrick Q. Mason)
What is Mormon Studies? How does one do it? In what way does it fit into the broader field of Religious Studies? In this all-new season of Scholars & Saints, UVA Religious Studies Ph.D. student Nicholas Shrum goes back to the basics of the ...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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44:28
Joseph Smith's Gold Plates (feat. Richard Bushman)
The mysterious gold plates are the gravitational center of the Latter Day Saint tradition. Although twelve people other than Joseph Smith claimed to have seen or handled the plates, Smith said he returned them to an angel soon after completing ...
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Episode 42
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26:07
Toward a Latter-day Saint Liberation Theology (feat. Ryan Ward)
Ryan Ward is a professor of experimental psychology. But during his time serving as a Latter-day Saint bishop several years ago in New York, the needs and concerns of his congregation motivated him to study theology in his spare time. We're cha...
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Episode 41
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55:59
Latter-day Saint Biblical Studies (feat. Cory Crawford and Taylor Petrey)
Cory Crawford and Taylor Petrey join me to discuss The Bible and the Latter-day Saint Tradition (Utah, 2023) and the opportunities and challenges of Latter-day Saint biblical studies in the 21st century.
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Episode 40
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41:07
Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism (feat. Mason Kamana Allred)
Today on Scholars & Saints, I'm joined by Mason Kamana Allred to talk about his new book Seeing Things: Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism (UNC 2023). We discuss German media theory, feminist new materialis...
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Episode 39
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38:59
Open Canon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Saint Tradition(s) (feat. Christine Blythe, Christopher Blythe, and Jay Burton)
Christine Elyse Blythe, Christopher James Blythe, and Jay Burton join me to discuss the scriptures of the Latter Day Saint "diaspora." There are more than 400 branches of the Restoration movement begun by Joseph Smith, Jr., and the prophetic pr...
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Episode 38
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58:58
A Brief Theological Introduction to the Book of Ether (feat. Rosalynde Welch)
Dr. Rosalynde Welch, senior research scholar and associate director of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU joins me to talk about the "literary turn" in Book of Mormon studies, postsecular critique, scriptural theolog...
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Episode 37
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55:03
The Secret Life of John Milton Bernhisel, Mormon Diplomat (feat. Bruce Worthen)
In this episode, I chat with Dr. Bruce Worthen about his recent book Mormon Envoy: The Diplomatic Legacy of Dr. John Milton Bernhisel (U. of Illinois Press). Worthen unfolds the little known contributions of Bernhisel, who as his...
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Episode 36
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1:11:49
Rethinking Grace as Justice (feat. Adam Miller)
In this episode, Professor Adam Miller (Collin College) chats with me about his recent book Original Grace: An Experiment in Restoration Thinking (BYU Maxwell Institute & Deseret Book, 2022). Miller argues that Latter-day Saint scr...
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Episode 35
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38:19
Baptism for the Dead & the Anthropology of Spirit Possession (feat. Jon Bialecki)
Dr. Jon Bialecki returns to the show to discuss a recent essay, "The Mormon Dead" that explores why Latter-day Saints do not seek or experience the phenomenon of spirit possession as a feature of proxy temple ordinances performed for their dece...
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Episode 34
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38:43
The Unexpected Hugh Nibley (feat. Joseph Spencer)
In this episode I chat with Professor Joseph Spencer, a philosopher and theologian from Brigham Young University. We talk about Spencer's recent reassessment of Nibley's legacy not as a scholar of the ancient world or of Mormon apologetics, but...
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Episode 33
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47:53
Latter-day Saint Ecotheology (feat. George Handley)
Dr. George Handley, Latter-day Saint ecocritic, activist, and professor of interdisciplinary humanities at Brigham Young University joins me to chat about what Latter-day Saint theology says about environmental stewardship. Handley says he hope...
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Episode 32
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54:15
Latter-day Saint Scriptural Theology (feat. James Faulconer)
Dr. James Faulconer, a Latter-day Saint philosopher and theologian now emeritus of Brigham Young University joins me to discuss "performative" or "scriptural" theology and how it helps illuminate Latter-day Saint scripture. In his recent book, ...
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Episode 31
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44:31
Latter-day Saint Bioethics (feat. Courtney Campbell)
Courtney Campbell, Hundere Professor in Religion and Culture at Oregon State University joins me in this episode to discuss his recent book Moral Realities: Medicine, Bioethics, & Mormonism (2021, Oxford University Press). We discu...
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Episode 30
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49:50
Mormon Visual Culture & The American West (feat. Nathan Rees)
Professor Nathan Rees (University of West Georgia) joins me to discuss his book Mormon Visual Culture and the American West. We chat about the role that visual art played in creating, mediating, and interpreting the experiences of nine...
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Episode 29
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49:21
The Last Mormon Liberal (feat. Kristine Haglund)
Kristine Haglund joins me to discuss her recent book, Eugene England: A Mormon Liberal, the inaugural volume in the University of Illinois Press's new Introductions to Mormon Thought Series. We talk about England's influences,...
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Episode 28
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32:41
Vardis Fisher and the Literature of Mormon Unbelief (feat. Michael Austin)
Dr. Michael Austin joins me to discuss his recent book Vardis Fisher: A Mormon Novelist. Fisher was the first of the "Lost Generation" or "Golden Age" of Mormon novelists in the early twentieth century. While self-identified as an athe...
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Episode 27
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38:56