In 2017, the Joseph Smith Papers Project will release volumes five and six of the Documents Series, covering major events from the life of Joseph Smith during the years 1835–1839. To celebrate the publication of these volumes, the project invites paper proposals for a conference to be held on October 20, 2017, at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City. While paper proposals need not specifically be about Joseph Smith, they should draw from the corpus of his surviving documents from 1835 to 1839. We encourage proposals that explore the broad themes covered in these volumes, including missionary efforts, the role of women and gender in religious communities, religious gathering, communitarian land purchasing strategies and urban planning, frontier violence, religion and the law, and religious dissent.
Scholars from all career stages and any related disciplines are encouraged to propose papers for inclusion in this conference. Paper proposals, which should include a brief abstract (no more than 500 words) and a current CV, should be sent to Spencer W. McBride (smcbride@ldschurch.org) by March 31. Authors of accepted papers will receive advance copies of volumes five and six of The Joseph Smith Papers. Some funding for travel is available for graduate students accepted to participate in the conference.
The Joseph Smith Papers Project is an effort to gather together all extant Joseph Smith documents and to publish complete and accurate transcripts of those documents with both textual and contextual annotation online and in print. All such documents will be published electronically at www.josephsmithpapers.org, and a large number of the documents will also be published in approximately two dozen print volumes. The print and electronic publications constitute an essential resource for scholars and students of the life and work of Joseph Smith, early Mormon history, and nineteenth-century American religion.