Contributor Bios

Harry S. Stout,
a member of The Joseph Smith Papers National Advisory Board, is Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History at Yale University and Chair, Department of Religious Studies. He received a B.A. degree from Calvin College after which he studied at Princeton Theological Seminary and University. He holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Kent State University. He taught at the University of Connecticut before joining in 1986 the faculty at Yale. From 1991 until the present, he has served as the general editor, The Works of Jonathan Edwards and general editor, Religion in America, a series with more than 30 books published to date. Among his published works that include books, articles, review essays and book reviews are Jonathan Edwards at 300: Essays on the Tercentenary of His Birth (coedited with Kenneth Minkema and Caleb Maskell), the award-winning Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War, and Stories of Faith, Stories of America: Religion in United States History (with Randall Balmer and Grant Wacker).
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Stephen J. Stein,
who sits on the National Advisory Board of The Joseph Smith Papers, is Chancellor’s Professor, Emeritus, of Religious Studies and Adjunct Professor of American History and American Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. He holds a Ph.D. degree from Yale University. He joined the faculty of Indiana University in 1970. Among his extensive writings are books dealing with Jonathan Edwards, alternative religions, and apocalypticism. He is the editor of three volumes in the Yale University Press edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards, The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, and the third volume of The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. He is the author of The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers and Communities of Dissent: A History of Alternative Religions in America. He is currently serving as the general editor of the projected three-volume The Cambridge History of Religions in America.
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Mary-Jo Kline
is a member of The Joseph Smith Papers National Advisory Board. She holds a Ph.D. in American history from Columbia University and a degree in Library and Information Science from Catholic University. She worked for the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society and headed the Public Papers of Aaron Burr at the New-York Historical Society. She is the author of the standard text in this field, A Guide to Documentary Editing. As a librarian, she was on the staff of the Web-based "American Memory" project at the Library of Congress and served as American History Specialist for the Brown University Library. She is presently a Resident Scholar in the History Department at the University of Virginia and a columnist for the Gilder Lehrman Institute's online journal History Now.
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Terryl L. Givens,
a member of The Joseph Smith Papers National Advisory Board, is James A. Bostwick Chair and Professor of Literature and Religion at the University of Richmond. He received a B.A. in comparative literature from Brigham Young University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Among his religious studies work are two titles with Oxford University Press. His works include Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths and the Construction of Heresy; By the Hand of the Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a World Religion; and People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture. His forthcoming book is When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thoughts. He has also published essays in Romanticism, literary theory, and cultural studies.
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