I am delighted to share the Call for Applications announcement for next year’s Mormon Theology Seminar. I will be co-directing the seminar at New York’s Union Theological Seminary with Joseph Spencer on the text of D&C 25. We believe the seminar text, process, and leadership have the potential to produce important work on gender and scripture. We hope to spread the word to draw from a diverse pool of applicants. Please share this announcement.
The Sixth Annual Summer Seminar on Mormon Theology
“Given Thee by My Spirit: Reading D&C 25”
Union Theological Seminary, New York City
June 16–June 29, 2019
Sponsored by the Mormon Theology Seminar
in partnership with
The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship
In the summer of 2019, the Mormon Theology Seminar, in partnership with the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University will sponsor a summer seminar for graduate students and faculty devoted to reading Doctrine and Covenants 25. The seminar will be hosted at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, from June 16 through June 29, 2019. Travel arrangements, housing, and a $1000 stipend will be provided for admitted participants. The seminar will be led by Joseph M. Spencer and Rosalynde Welch.
This sixth annual summer seminar will again adapt the Mormon Theology Seminar’s practice of facilitating intense, exploratory, interdisciplinary, and collaborative readings of Mormon scripture for a live two-week format. During the first week, the seminar will meet daily to work word by word through the text of Doctrine and Covenants 25 from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (philosophical, historical, literary, anthropological, rhetorical, political, archeological, sociological, etc.) in order to promote theologically rich readings of the text. During the second week, seminar members will workshop conference papers and a joint report based on the previous week’s collaboration. The Seminar will culminate in a one-day conference, open to the public, on June 29, 2019. The conference proceedings will then be gathered and edited for publication.
The seminar welcomes applications from a wide variety of academic disciplines, cultural backgrounds, and geographic locations. Graduate students, junior faculty, and scholars based outside the U.S. are especially encouraged to apply, though applications from senior and independent scholars are also welcome.
Applications should be submitted by January 1, 2019. Notifications will be sent by February 1, 2019. Application materials should include (1) a full curriculum vitae, (2) a 200-word statement regarding the applicant’s interest in the seminar, and (3) an essay of 500-750 words that demonstrates the applicant’s ability to offer a close, creative, and theologically substantial reading of D&C 25:15.
Questions and application materials should be directed to [email protected]
For more information about the Mormon Theology Seminar, visit:
For more information about the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, visit: