Religious Studies Program, Utah Valley State College

Eighth Annual Mormon Studies Conference

Restoration Christianity

Commonality and Divergence in Latter Day Saint Movements

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

UVSC Student Center, Room 206a

10:00-11:15

Unity and Diversity in Early Mormon Movements

John Hamer, John Whitmer Association

Steven L. Shields, Community of Christ

John Hamer is an independent researcher specializing in medieval European history, medieval cartography, and the history of the Latter Day Saint movement. He is Executive Director of the John Whitmer Historical Association, an independent association devoted to Latter Day Saint history, and is the coeditor of Scattering of the Saints: Schism within Mormonism.

Steven L. Shields is a full-time minister for the Community of Christ, currently assigned to the Church's Asia Mission Field. One of the foremost experts on the Latter Day Saint movement, he is the author of Divergent Paths of the Restoration.

11:30-12:10

Situating and Maintaining Latter-day Saint Identity

Grant Underwood, Brigham Young University

Sarah Barringer-Gordon, University of Pennsylvania

Grant Underwood is Professor of History at Brigham Young University. He is the author of The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism, editor of Voyages of Faith: Explorations in Mormon Pacific History, and contributor to the upcoming Joseph Smith Papers. He also serves as co-chair of the Mormon Studies Consultation with the American Academy of Religion.

Sarah Barringer Gordon is the Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. A widely recognized scholar and commentator on religion in American public life and the law of church and state, she is the author of The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America.

12:15-12:45

Panel Discussion

John Hamer, Steven Shields, Grant Underwood, Sarah Barringer-Gordon

1:00-2:15

Hedrickites, Strangites, and the Texas Saints

(box lunches will be provided)

R. Jean Addams

Vickie Cleverley Speeck

Michael Scott Van Wagenen

R. Jean Addams is an independent researcher living in Woodinville, Washington with his wife Elizabeth. He is a graduate of the University of Utah (BS and MBA). He has presented papers at conferences for the Mormon History Association, Sunstone, and the John Whitmer Historical Association, and is a specialist in the study of The Church of Christ, Temple Lot (also known as the Hedrickites).

Vickie Cleverley Speek is a former newspaper and radio reporter, feature writer, and columnist in Illinois and Michigan. She is the author of God Has Made Us a Kingdom: James Strang and the Midwest Mormons.

Michael Scott Van Wagenen is a PhD candidate at the University of Utah, completing a dissertation entitled "Remembering the Forgotten War: Memory and the U.S. Mexican War, 1848-2008." A specialist on Lyman Wight and the Texas saints, he is the author of The Texas Republic and the Mormon Kingdom of God (2002). Prior to working in academics, he was an award-winning ethnographic documentary filmmaker. He and his wife Monica and their four children live in Salt Lake City.

2:30-3:45

Panel Discussion

R. Jean Addams, Vickie Cleverley Speeck, Michael Scott Van Wagenen

The conference is free and open to the public

For more information, contact

Boyd Petersen at (801) 471-0900 or petersbo@uvsc.edu or Brian Birch at (801) 863-8759 or birchbr@uvsc.edu

This event is made possible by the generous support of the UVSC Center for the Study of Ethics