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Claremont Mormon Studies j NEWSLETTERi SPRING 2011 t IssUE NO . 4 A Claremont Sojourn IN THIS ISSUE BY Richard Bushman The End of Our Era PAGE 2 Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies k laudia and I spent a year in Pas- enterprise. Mormon students iBlessed, Honored adena in 1997 and 1998 when I would comprise the bulk of the C Pioneers PAGE 2 started work on Joseph Smith: Rough seminar participants with a few Stone Rolling. At that time Interstate curious outsiders scattered in. The k 210 had not reached Claremont, and experiment has worked well. It Farewells to Richard and the town seemed a long way away. attracted a large group of inquisitive The last five miles or so on Foothill Latter-day Saints to the School of Claudia Bushman PAGES 2 & 3 Boulevard seemed to take forever. Religion. Claremont had always k Even so the beautiful campus made drawn Mormons but by this last the university alluring, a little aca- winter, Mormon students or non- Contributions to Mormon demic paradise well worth the trip. Mormons in the Mormon Studies Studies PAGE 4 Ten years later, when an offer came program constituted 20% of all k to teach here, it did not take much to active SOR students taking courses persuade us. or preparing for qualifying exams. Students Bid Farewell PAGE 7 We were drawn This core with their by the grand “The beautiful campus active program experiment Karen made the university of speakers and Torjesen and the alluring, a little conferences, and now The students had less of a School of Religion the institution of the problem adjusting to the academic were undertaking. academic paradise Claremont Journal environment than I did. I had Mormon Studies well worth the trip.” of Mormon Studies, wondered how they would feel about along with Islamic have gone a long their own prized faith being put Studies were a test of the proposition way toward making Claremont the under the microscope. Would they that the study of a religious tradition national center for Mormon studies. get anxious when every aspect of could be conducted by participants There were problems as we got their religion was subject to scrutiny in that tradition. The students started. It came down to pronouns. and not always to its advantage? I and the teachers were not only to I kept slipping into “we” in speaking asked one non-Mormon auditor examine a religion but to embody of Mormon culture, even with non- who turned up in three classes on it. Although the undertaking Mormons in the class. Fortunately, Mormonism how he had liked the seemed to violate the customary the Mormon students were more classes. He said he was impressed standards of objectivity in academic troubled by these lapses than the how well the Mormon students undertakings, we thought it others, and we soon developed a took on anything without growing deserved a try. kind of easy-going recognition of the defensive or shrinking back. In my We discovered at the outset that inside-outside divide and learned to experience that has invariably been this would be a heavily Mormon live with it. the response. [see Sojourn, 7] PAGE 1 HTTP://RELIGION.CGU.EDU t HTTP://WWW.CLAREMONTMORMONSTUDIES.ORG CLAREMONT MORMON STUDIES NEWSLETTER t SPRING 2011 The End of Our Era into the ken of project members will continue to be interviewed. New cells will be established, and there BY Claudia Bushman Professor, CGU School of Religion will be a particular emphasis on the global church as the project moves ichard and I are already nostal- things from visiting lecturers. The toward its next major goal of 200 Rgic for our great days at Clare- remembrance of Mudd Hall, full of interviews. I expect to continue to mont, soon to be over. I, always pes- LDS people from around the area, contribute from the foreign city of simistic about the future, doubted listening with interest, eager to know New York. that there were any more interesting when the next conference or lecture We know that the Mormon chapters left in our long and event- would be is one of my happiest studies program will continue to ful lives. Yet, here came another one memories. move forward under the direction of which would bring us back to my I have been particularly Patrick Mason. That the succession native California, designated by all appreciative of the many students has been solved so smoothly, with as “The Greatest State of All.” I’m and citizens such cooperation actually from San Francisco, but I’ve involved in the “I realize anew that we can and good will by always loved the southlands too. Claremont Oral do absolutely anything the university, the So we have not only had History program. school, the council California but the fun of building Together we have if we work together.” and all individuals a new program. We’ve done lots of created a body of concerned is evidence program building over the years, but material useful now and into the of the strength and maturity of the Claremont offered special incentives. future. As I look at the eight three people involved. Patrick will have We’ve both been involved with inch binders on my shelf, full of the many new ideas, as will the students. Mormon studies forever, but there distilled experience of more than We leave our good wishes and was no institutional home for such one hundred LDS women, thousands encouragement, our blessing, on the a thing. I found the opportunity to of pages, representing hundreds and college and the program. teach Mormon studies particularly hundreds of hours of labor, I realize And now that we have had the ironic because I was once, long, anew that we can do absolutely Claremont experience and we long ago, considered incapable of anything if we work together. I am can be considered qualified to teaching Women’s studies, because I pleased that the oral history project teach Mormonism, and now that was a Mormon. will stay at Claremont and that it Mormons are such big news, we’re We have very much enjoyed the will continue under the direction of going to teach a class at Columbia collaboration with and interest of Lisa Clayton. The women who sweep next year. Amazing. t the different groups we have worked with. The students have shown themselves bright and lively, willing Blessed, Honored Pioneers to take on big assignments, quick BY Patrick Q. Mason to collaborate and help each other. Incoming Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies I think that their experience at Claremont has been formative. The he designation “pioneer” is over- mont for the past three years. Each Mormon Studies Council, filled with Tused in our hyperbolic culture, has received their share of accolades, wonderful and generous people, have but sometimes it is simply the only stretching back to the Bancroft been supportive of whatever ideas we term that will do. Such is the case Prize (the highest prize for a book have come up with. The greater LDS with Richard and Claudia Bushman, in American history) awarded to community has been open to this who have led the way in Mormon Richard in 1968. But many other his- big experiment and has been willing studies for many years, and at the torians win awards. The Bushmans’ to learn and to consider many new Mormon Studies program at Clare- contributions, individually and as a PAGE 2 HTTP://RELIGION.CGU.EDU t HTTP://WWW.CLAREMONTMORMONSTUDIES.ORG CLAREMONT MORMON STUDIES NEWSLETTER t SPRING 2011 pair, are much greater. the 1980s and 1990s had resulted have guided my career ever since. I Richard blazed a trail back to in something of a lost generation don’t think I’m overstating the case Mormon history after wandering in in terms of young professional to trace the vibrancy of Mormon the not-exactly-wilderness of early academics joining the ranks of studies, particularly among the American history Mormon studies, generation currently in their mid- for many years. He Richard was the 20s to late-30s, in no small part to could have retired “Claudia’s published crucial player in Richard’s visionary leadership in comfortably from scholarship and the creation of the these summer seminars. his chaired position organizational acumen Summer Fellows’ The capstone of Richard’s career at Columbia and Program at the Smith in teaching and mentoring has continued to write have forged trails in Institute at BYU occurred in the School of Religion sterling narratives important but otherwise beginning in 1997. at Claremont Graduate University about the origins of neglected areas.” Dozens of up-and- these past three years. Many of American culture coming scholars the Saints in the 1840s wished that and society. Instead, had their first real Brigham Young had ended his he applied his skills and energy to professional training in Mormon lifelong journey from New York the scholarly study of Mormonism, studies under the tutelage of Richard to the American West in balmy culminating in his masterful (and others) in these seminars. I am California rather than the desert biography of Joseph Smith. We are one of these, having participated valleys of Utah. But just as it was all beneficiaries of his chosen path. in the summer of 2000 following the original Mormon pioneers who But just as important as his my first year of graduate school. gave life to Brigham’s promise that research and writing has been It was one of the most formative Utah was their place of destiny, so Richard’s mentoring.

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