Mormon Scholar Richard Bushman to Visit UW March 2-3

Feb. 20, 2007 -- Renowned American historian Richard Lyman Bushman will present a public lecture, "Joseph Smith's Place in History," Friday, March 2, at 7 p.m. in the University of Wyoming Fine Arts Center concert hall.

Bushman, Columbia University's Gouverneur Morris professor of history, emeritus, will visit UW March 2-3, as part of the ongoing lecture series, "The Latter-day Saints and Their World."

On Saturday, March 3, Bushman will read selections from his new Joseph Smith biography, "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling" (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), and discuss the writing process. The reading will be at 10 a.m. on the first floor of William Robertson Coe Library.

"Both of these events will be of interest to people of many different faiths who face the question of how to talk about their faith in a way that makes sense to outsiders -- because that's essentially what Bushman was doing in his book," says Quincy Newell, assistant professor in UW's Religious Studies Program.

"He was writing about a very important figure in his religion, but trying to do so in a way that makes sense both to his LDS co-religionists and to his non-LDS readers," she adds.

Harry Stout, an eminent historian of Puritan America and Yale University professor of religious studies, calls Bushman's latest work, "the best book ever written about Mormonism's founding father, and America's greatest home-grown prophet." Bushman has received similar accolades from other prominent scholars of American religious history.

Bushman's first book, "From Puritan to Yankee: Character and Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765," won the Bancroft Prize in 1968. Bushman previously taught at Brigham Young University, Boston University and the University of Delaware.

Both events are sponsored by the UW Religious Studies Program with support from the UW offices of the president and academic affairs; the UW departments of History and English; the UW programs of American studies, creative writing, and university honors; the American Heritage Center; the College of Arts and Sciences; University Libraries; University Outreach School; the Wyoming Humanities Council; the Laramie LDS Stake; the LDS Student Association; and the Spring Creek Ward.

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Renowned American historian Richard Lyman Bushman will present a public lecture, "Joseph Smith's Place in History," Friday, March 2, at 7 p.m. in the University of Wyoming Fine Arts Center concert hall. (Courtesy Photo)

Posted on Tuesday, February 20, 2007