Graduate Student Conference: Schedule and Registration Information
“May These Principles Be Established”: Mormonism in the Political Arena
April 19, 2008
Featured Scholars include...
Richard Bushman, the Howard W. Hunter visiting professor of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University
Gaston Espinoza, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Claremont McKenna College
Kelly Patterson, Department of Political Science, Brigham Young University
The balance between church and state has always been a lively and sometimes contentious issue, even, and perhaps especially, in the United States, a country with long-declared freedom of religion. From the time of Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign, through the tumultuous integration of Utah into the wider American political body and up to the present day in which Mormons dot the political landscape, Mormonism has sought to define its relationship to the body politic. In the process, it has raised issues ranging from theocracy to the place of private beliefs in public policy creation.
In order to explore these issues, the Claremont Mormon Studies Student Association (CMSSA) invites all interested graduate students to join us for a conference addressing the theme of Mormonism in the political arena. Unlike traditional academic conferences, this event is specifically designed to provide a select number of graduate students an intensive experience of presentation, stimulating discussion, and small-group mentoring by scholars already in the field.
The conference will be held April 18-19, 2008 at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. Papers from all social scientific and humanities disciplines were considered, as this topic invites exploration from many perspectives, individual, organizational, historical, contemporary, theological, ethical and even international.
It is anticipated that similar conferences on additional topics relevant to Mormon Studies will be held biennially.