Christopher James Blythe is a Research Associate at the Maxwell Institute’s Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies from 2018-2021. In 2019 he was named co-editor of the Journal of Mormon History. He also is co-president of the Folklore Society of Utah. His book, Terrible Revolution: Latter Day Saints and the American Apocalypse will be published by Oxford University Press in the summer of 2020. He has coedited two volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers Documents series. Blythe earned a Ph.D. in American Religious History from Florida State University. He received a master’s degree in History from Utah State University in 2011. His master’s thesis was awarded best thesis from the Mormon History Association. Dr. Blythe also holds bachelor’s degrees from Utah State University and Texas A&M University in Religious Studies and Anthropology, respectively. Prior to Dr. Blythe’s employment at the Maxwell Institute, he was a historian and documentary editor for the Joseph Smith Papers, a predoctoral teaching fellow in Mormon Studies at Utah State University, as well as an instructor at Salt Lake Community College, Tallahassee Community College, Brigham Young University, and Florida State University. Blythe’s work blends the methodologies of history, folklore, and religious studies. His work has appeared in a number of academic journals including the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, BYU Studies, the Journal of Religion, Journal of the Bible and Its Reception, Material Religion, and Nova Religio. His article. “Would to God I Could Tell You Who I Am”: Nineteenth Century Mormonisms and the Apotheosis of Joseph Smith,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religion 18, no. 2 (2014): 5-27, was the recipient of the Article of Excellence Award by Mormon History Association and the Thomas Robbins Award for Excellence in the Study of New Religious Movements. At the Institute he is currently working on a cultural history of Book of Mormon geography.
