The 57th Annual Mormon History Association conference is this weekend, June 2-5, 2022. The theme, “Landscape, Art & Religion: The Intermountain West and the World,” has brought in a bumper crop of presentations about literature and the arts. There are papers about classic works and contemporary writers and many other angles on Mormon literature. In fact, attendees will have at least one literature option at each session-time!
It’s not too late to register to attend online or in person. We’d love to see you there.
Here’s a rundown of the MHA sessions that are specifically about literature:
Friday, June 3
10:30am – noon: Landscapes of the Soul in Women’s Literature
10:30am – noon: Lands of Promise: Sacred Spaces in the Mormon Lit Blitz
2:00pm – 3:30pm: The Written Landscape of Latter-day Saint Women in the Middle Period
4:00pm – 5:30pm: Shaping Landscape in Fiction
Sat, June 4
10:30am – noon: Gay Mormon Literature Project: Analysis of Key Texts and Illumination of a Larger Legacy
10:30am – noon: Suburban Landscapes in Contemporary Mormon Literature
2:00pm – 3:30pm: Where Belief Wanders: Poetic Topographies in the New West and Beyond
4:00pm – 5:30pm: More than Skin Deep: Claiming Voices as Latter-day Saint Writers
4:00pm – 5:30pm: Literature of Transition: The Landscapes of Susa Young Gates, Nephi Anderson and Virginia Sorensen
In addition, there are individual papers that are literature related that are spread among other sessions. Here’s a complete list of all the presentations about literature:
Tara Godwin — Fri 6/3 10:30a Session 1E: No God Could Ever Mean So Much to a Woman (Maurine Whipple and The Giant Joshua)
Michelle Graabek — Fri 6/3 10:30a Session 1E: Landscape in the writings of Danish LDS women 1850-1900
Lynne Larson — Fri 6/3 10:30a Session 1E: Reality and Metaphor in the Works of Maurine Whipple
Ann Call Leonard — Fri 6/3 10:30a Session 1G: A Brief Look at Two Cache Valley Poets
Katherine Cowley — Fri 6/3 10:30a Session 1J: International Landscapes in the Mormon Lit Blitz
James Goldberg — Fri 6/3 10:30a Session 1J: The Geography of the Restoration
Nicole Goldberg — Fri 6/3 10:30a Session 1J: The Mo Lit Blitz, Zion, and the Promised Land
César Fortes — Fri 6/3 10:30a Session 1J: The Motivation for Writing as Mormon
Kent Larsen — Fri 6/3 2:00p Session 2F: Imagining a Book of Mormon Landscape: Changing Ideas of Geography and Climate in Fiction about the Book of Mormon
Gerrit van Dyk — Fri 6/3 2:00p Session 2F: The Poetic Landscape of the Book of Mormon and its Literary Interpreters
Amy Easton-Flake — Fri 6/3 2:00p Session 2H: Poetical Exegesis in the Woman’s Exponent
Rebekah Jakeman — Fri 6/3 2:00p Session 2H: The changing landscape of literature in the Latter-Day Saint community from the 1800’s to the 1900’s
Rebekah Westrup — Fri 6/3 2:00p Session 2H: Writing Herself Into the Landscape: A Discussion of Minerva Teichert’s Books
Jessie Christensen — Fri 6/3 2:00p Session 2J: Latin American Women in the Relief Society Magazine
Gabriel González Núñez — Fri 6/3 2:00p Session 2J: The Literary Landscape for 20th Century Spanish- speaking LDS authors
Rosalyn Eves — Fri 6/3 4:00p Session 3L: Shaping Landscape in Fiction
Todd Robert Peterson — Fri 6/3 4:00p Session 3L: Shaping Landscape in Fiction
Conor Hilton — Sat 6/4 10:30a Session 4A: Symbolic and Literal Use of Landscape in Contemporary Mormon Art
Gerald Argetsinger — Sat 6/4 10:30a Session 4D: Nine Years Later: Bringing Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Up to Date with the Gay Mormon Literature Project
Adam McLain — Sat 6/4 10:30a Session 4D: Faithfully Living, Fictionally Portraying: The Struggle for Latter- day Saint Gay Identity in Literature
Kristin Perkins — Sat 6/4 10:30a Session 4D: Historical Characters, Contemporary Plays, Queer Futures: Performing the Past as Advocacy for LGBTQ+ Inclusion
Lisa Van Orman Hadley — Sat 6/4 10:30a Session 4F: The Suburbs and Other Liminal Spaces
Angela Hallstrom — Sat 6/4 10:30a Session 4F: The Extraordinary Landscapes of Contemporary Mormon Fiction
Darlene L. Young — Sat 6/4 10:30a Session 4F: The Grace of the Mundane: Making Art From Suburbia
Jill Mulvay Derr — Sat 6/4 2:00p Session 5B: A New Look at an Old Icon: Excavating the Discourses of Eliza R. Snow
Lance Larsen — Sat 6/4 2:00p Session 5E: Where Belief Wanders: Poetic Topographies in the New West and Beyond
Dave Nielsen — Sat 6/4 2:00p Session 5E: Where Belief Wanders: Poetic Topographies in the New West and Beyond
Elisa Eastwood Pulido — Sat 6/4 2:00p Session 5E: Where Belief Wanders: Poetic Topographies in the New West and Beyond
Marianne Hales Harding — Sat 6/4 2:00p Session 5F: Halfway to Heaven: Poems Crafted in Utah’s Wild Places
William Morris — Sat 6/4 2:00p Session 5F: Glorious and Grotesque: Orson F. Whitney on the Grand Canyon
Liz Busby — Sat 6/4 2:00p Session 5G: Confronting Colonialism Through Magic: Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive in Conversation with Mormon Colonialism
Michael Austin — Sat 6/4 2:00p Session 5K: Vardis Fisher: A Mormon Novelist
César Augusto Medina Fortes — Sat 6/4 4:00p Session 6J: More than Skin Deep: Claiming Voices as Latter-day Saint Writers
Melissa Leilani Larsen — Sat 6/4 4:00p Session 6J: More than Skin Deep: Claiming Voices as Latter-day Saint Writers
Lehua Parker — Sat 6/4 4:00p Session 6J: More than Skin Deep: Claiming Voices as Latter-day Saint Writers
Rafael Vázquez Veláquez — Sat 6/4 4:00p Session 6J: More than Skin Deep: Claiming Voices as Latter-day Saint Writers
Natalie Brown — Sat 6/4 4:00p Session 6L: Susa Young Gates’ Embrace and Critique of the Couple-Centered Home in John Stevens’ Courtship
Scott Hales — Sat 6/4 4:00p Session 6L: “A Very, Very Sad Disappointment”: Landscape, Gender, and Religious Devotion in Nephi Anderson’s Piney Ridge Cottage
Sarah Reed — Sat 6/4 4:00p Session 6L: “Where Nothing is Long Ago”: The Landscape of Memory in Virginia Sorensen’s Writing