Talk:Mormon Studies Review

Board's makeup
...(the new one, in contrast to the old one) was noted in the Peggy Stack "Split among M. Scholars" piece. In full, its members are listed here. The Church's reaching out to hire or otherwise involve scholars who had established their expertise at academic posts at non-LDS affil. educational institutions tends to be a cyclical thing, depending on the Brethrens' whim the mood of the times. For example--and of pertinence to the present case: The Joseph Smith Papers Project is an endeavor that is cosponsored by the LDS Church and some branch of the US gov. (library of congress or something) to go through all of Jos. Smith Jun.'s writings. If one goes to the Wikiarticle on the project and looks at the scholars the Church has assigned the task, all of 'em come from CES (the Church's education system). Except for just about the youngest of the bunch: Matt Grow... who had been a new university prof somewhere in the midwest who had written an award winning biography of Thomas Kane and co-authored an award-winning bio of Parley Pratt (the latter published by Oxford, which does titles in M. Studies, oddly enough). And Grow had been assigned to be the C. Hist. Dept.'s new director of publishing. So, reading the tea leaves, it seems to be of note that--out of all the few LDS-affiliated folks brought in to be on the NEW M. Studies Review's board--it was (1) the youthful Grow who made the cut as the only non-BYU prof. to do so. And BYU Engl. prof. Fluhman, the MSR's new ed. in chief's, one book was an examination of anti-Mormonism so his selection might reveal a certain indication that BYU hopes that the new version of the journal will address outside scholarship about Mormonism from a secular perspective while being on the look out for prejudice against LDS, but maybe I'm making more of that than I ought. By the way the rest of the board's membership are (2) Barlow, who chairs "Mormon History and Culture" at Ut. State Univ.; (3) Bushman, retired from Columbia, for a short time was the inaugural chair of M. Studies at Claremont; (4) non-Mormon Davies is the Prof of Theology and Religion at Durham; (5) Eliason, an Engl. prof at Brigham Young; (6) Faulconer, Professor of Religious Understanding and also Professor of Philosophy, Brigham Young; (7) non-Mormon [oops!] Flake teaches at Vanderbilt; (8) Givens chairs the English dept. and is the prof. of Literature and Religion at the Univ. of Richmond; (9) [Added later: non-Mormon] Gordon is the professor of Constitutional Law and professor of History at Penn; (10) Hardy is the prof. of History and Religious Studies at the Univ. of No. Carolina—Asheville; (11) Holland teaches at Harvard Divinity School; (12) Maffly-Kipp chairs the dept. of relig. studies at the Univ. of No. Carolina at Chapel Hill; (13) Mason is current chair of M. Studies at Claremont Graduate University; (14) Newell teaches at the Univ. of Wyoming; and (15) Underwood is Prof. of History at Brigham Young.--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 15:55, 29 August 2013 (UTC)--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 18:27, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Former ed. in chief on the regime change:"it seems certain that the principal factor was a desire to become more purely “academic,” and to reconceive its audience as not merely including professional scholars but as primarily if not exclusively composed of full-time academics and academic libraries. [... ...] the renaming of the FARMS Review as the Mormon Studies Review[...]represented [inerjection by Wikipedian Hodgdon: in hindsight, if nothing else] a fundamental change of mission for the journal[...].  --Dan Peterson, in Interpreter---SOURCE LINK"--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 19:24, 30 August 2013 (UTC) (Reformatted the above.)--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 19:59, 3 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I am reading this and I will get back to you. One thing, though, I thought the new board members that make up the Maxwell Institute came from a variety of non-BYU colleges and universities. Are you saying the new Mormon Studies journal will consist of only BYU professors (except for Grow)? --- Steve Quinn (talk) 23:06, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The only guy from the Church Historical Department (not the church edu. system: CES) is Grow but there are, out of 15 total currently on the new board, from Brig. Young U., eliason, faulconer, and underwood.--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 19:57, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Addendum: Oops ok I stand corrected in that I overlooked the fact that old-timer (um relatively speaking) Givens, never BYzU-bie faculty, is also with the JosSmithPapersProject, along w/Grow.--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2013 (UTC)


 * First issue (of revamped Review's) table of contents: LINK (pdf). Publisher's announcement: link.--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden"Goals: ...first, to track the growth and development of the growing, if still inchoate, academic subfield of Mormon studies, and second, to serve as a bridge between Mormon studies and the wider academy."--Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 22:55, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Board coinciding with transfer to Univ. of Illinois in 2019
Self-description: "About Mormon Studies Review

Since it was re-launched six years ago, Mormon Studies Review has been the premier review journal of a popular, evolving, and interdisciplinary subfield. Published annually, it typically includes roundtables, disciplinary essays, review essays, and a handful of book reviews that in some way cover the Mormon tradition and its wider world. Contributions traverse many different disciplines, topics, centuries, and nations, and touch on issues related to religion, politics, gender, race, and class. The authors have included seasoned leaders in their respective fields as well as junior scholars fresh out of graduate programs. The primary audience for the journal is academics and institutions who, while not specialists in Mormon studies, are interested in its scholarship as it relates to broader academic trends and topics."

"Members of current editorial board include:

Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies, University of Auckland Seth Perry, Assistant Professor of Religion, Princeton University --Hodgdon&#39;s secret garden (talk) 23:26, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Hokulani Aikau, Associate Professor of Gender Studies and Ethnic Studies, University of Utah
 * Michael Austin, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of Evansville
 * Elise Boxer, Assistant Professor of History and Coordinator of Native American Studies, University of South Dakota
 * Rachel Cope, Associate Professor of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University
 * Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, Assistant Professor of History, Montana State University
 * David J. Howlett, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Kenyon College
 * Amy Hoyt, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, University of the Pacific
 * Megan Sanborn Jones, Professor of Theatre, Brigham Young University
 * Susanna Morrill, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Lewis and Clark College
 * Sara M. Patterson, Associate Professor of Theological Studies, Hanover College
 * Paul Reeve, Simmons Professor of Mormon Studies and Professor of History, University of Utah
 * Sujey Vega, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies, Arizona State University
 * Pierre Vendassi, Associate Researcher, Centre Émile Durkheim, University of Bordeaux

FARMS Review vs Mormon Studies Review
Should the Mormon Studies Review be considered the same publication as the FARMS Review? As I understand it here are the reasons:


 * Make Different Publications
 * New mission : Different editorial team, board, and mission. Daniel Peterson and polemics were out, and Spencer Fluhman and academia were in.
 * New numbering : Issues under the old team were continuously numbered (even when the journal's title changed) from Volume 1 (1989) through Volume 23 (2011). Under the new editorial direction, the issue numbering restarted at Volume 1, Issue 1.
 * Hiatus : Old numbering ended in early 2011, new numbering started in 2014. Around 2.5 years to get the new publication organized?
 * Publisher separates them : On the Maxwell Institute website they are listed separately. FARMS Review is listed in the "Past Publications" from 1989-2011 (the last issue, vol. 21, no. 1, confusingly called Mormon Studies Review).  In contrast Mormon Studies Review is not listed as a "Past Publication"


 * Keep as Same Publication
 * Same name : Old editorial team (under Dan Peterson) had already adopted Mormon Studies Review (albeit for their last issue before the haitus)
 * Same publisher : The old version and the new version of the Mormon Studies Review both have the same publisher, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at BYU
 * Same trajectory : The new scope of the new incarnation of the Review could be seen as a continuation of the existing pattern of broadening the focus of the journal since its beginning (from Review of Books on the Book of Mormon to FARMS Review of Books to Farms Review to Mormon Studies Review, all done under Dan Peterson). The new journal and new editors are still leaving room for apologetics and not abandoning the function of the old Review.

What do you think? I'm leaning toward them being different journals, and we should probably consult the various statements that were made publicly in 2011/2012 and when the Review started up again. ——Rich jj (talk) 23:11, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Mormon Studies Review is a reboot, and really should be considered a separate publication. This is how BYU is handling it on their webpages, where they segment out the two publications when you look for issues online; it makes sense to follow their lead, since it's their publication. — Asterisk *  Splat → 23:51, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I've tried to show that the new MSR is a different animal, but still descends from its predecessor, the FARMS review. Someday we might want to create a separate article for the FARMS review (and move that section on notable apologia). Interestingly, when Spencer Fluhman wrote the editor's introduction to the rebooted Review, he didn't mention Peterson and only referred to FARMS in a footnote. It seems as if the new Review is a separate publication, but is also continuing from the original FARMS publication. The line seems hazy. ——Rich jj (talk) 23:33, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Problem is, if you argue that this is something completely independent of FARMS, you end up with a publication that is barely a year old and will have a hell of a time to show any notability. Many journals go through a "reboot" and many publishers then have different content pages for the old and new versions. They often even re-start volume numbering at 1. In the time that journals only existed as print, libraries would shelve them at different places (often shelving was alphabetical on journal name). Nowadays, all journals have electronic counterparts (and many don't have print any more), so we don't have those physical constraints any more. At WP the practice has been to combine information about different versions of a journal into one consolidated article. It makes it easier to describe the history and shows the development of the publications clearer than if there were separate articles. If one publications is a "reboot" of another, there's a clear historical line of continuity and it just makes for a much better article to keep things together. This journal announced that it would "restart", it didn't say that it would cease publication and that a different journal would be created. --Randykitty (talk) 10:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Point taken. It may be best to leave FR and MSR together in this article.  The FR legacy may help establish the notability of MSR.  Since the line between them is hazy, this one article can describe both.  But instead of saying this is one continuous journal (1989-current), should I have an infobox for the original journal (1989-2011), and another infobox for the current reboot (2014-current)?  ——Rich jj (talk) 15:31, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The usual practice would be to go with "1989-present" and present the details of the history in the body of the text. If you consider one the continuation (even with another name and volume numbering) of the other, that's the logical thing to do. And, after all, an infobox is for a rapid overview only, details go in the text. Here we have a periodical with a publishing history going back to 1989, putting "2014-present" would be misleading. --Randykitty (talk) 15:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

FARMS Review and Mormon Studies Review are separate periodicals
The FARMS Review and the Mormon Studies Review are separate periodicals, per writings in a journal article from Brant Gardner. Gardner was familiar with the FARMS institution and its periodical and wrote the following in a 2021 article for the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: The journal first appeared as the Review of Books on the Book of Mormon in 1989. In 1996, it became the FARMS Review of Books and then, in 2003, simply the FARMS Review. For one final issue before the journal ceased publication, it became the Mormon Studies Review in 2011 (not to be confused with the still-current Mormon Studies Review, which published its first issue in 2014). See Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 30 (2021): 156–157.

The way Gardner describes it, although the FARMS Review was renamed the Mormon Studies Review in 2011, it and the 2014-launched Mormon Studies Review are separate publications, despite the name they shared.

The best course of action seems to me to be to create separate pages for the FARMS Review and the Mormon Studies Review and to identify them as different periodicals. Hydrangeans (she/her &#124; talk &#124; edits) 10:20, 10 February 2024 (UTC)