Janiece Johnson

Janiece Johnson was a Willes Center Research Associate from 2018-2021. She specializes in American religious history—specifically Mormon history, gender, and the prosecution for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Dr. Johnson has graduate degrees in American History and Theology from Brigham Young University, Vanderbilt’s Divinity School, and the University of Leicester in England. Her work has included the religious experience of early female Mormon converts, the prosecution for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and its interdependent relationship to the popular narrative told about the massacre. She is co-author of The Witness of Women: First-hand Experiences and Testimonies of the Restoration (Deseret Book, 2016) and general editor of the recently published Mountain Meadows Massacre: Collected Legal Papers (University of Oklahoma Press, 2017). Dr. Johnson’s current research centers on the Book of Mormon in practice and the relationship of early Mormon converts to their new American scripture.

EDUCATION

• 2014               University of Leicester, Leicester, England: PhD School of History, American History
• 2004               Divinity School, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee: MTS American Religious History and Christian History
• 2001               Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah: MA Department of History – American History
• 1998               Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah: BA Political Science

EXPERIENCE (Selected)

• Laura F. Willes Faculty Research Associate, Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, September 2017 to present.
• Rare Book School, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, Summer 2019, Spring 2020, forthcoming in 2021.
• Visiting Professor, Religion Department, Brigham Young University-Idaho, Rexburg, Idaho, August 2014–August 2017. Classes taught included Foundations of the Restoration (225), Doctrine and Covenants (324 & 325), Church History (341 & 342), Women of the Restoration (390R) as well as New Testament (211) and Book of Mormon (121 & 122).
• Book Review Editor, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 2015–2020. Editorial Board, Journal of Mormon History, 2015–2017.
• Editor/Historian, Mountain Meadows Legal Papers Project, LDS Church History Department, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2004–2012.
• National Historical Publications and Records Commission Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Summer 2010.
• Joseph Fielding Smith Institute Summer Fellow, Brigham Young University, 2003.

PUBLICATIONS (Selected)

• American Punishment: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Mormon Transgressions
  
  • Under contract with the University of North Carolina Press
• “Rahab: Our Hearts Did Melt” in Old Testament Insights: The Sacrifice of a Broken Heart and Contrite Spirit, Covenant Books, forthcoming.
• “Lucy Mack Smith and Her Sacred Text,” in Open Canon: The Scriptures of the Latter- day Saint Diaspora, University of Utah Press, forthcoming.
• “The Prophet, the Book, and the Saints,” in Know Brother Joseph: New Perspectives on Joseph Smith’s Life and Character, eds. Eric Smith, Matthew Godfrey, and Matthew Grow (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 46-52.
• “A Witness of One’s Own” Ensign and Liahona, December 2020.
• “I Never Planned to Go to Divinity School” in A Place to Belong: Reflections from Modern Latter-day Saint Women, eds. Hollie Fluhman and Camille Fronk Olson, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019), 133-137.
• “Becoming a People of the Books: Toward an Understanding of Early Mormon Converts and the New Word of the Lord,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 27 (2018), 1-43.
• First Fifty Years of Relief Society Study Guide with Jennifer Reeder (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018).
• General Editor, Mountain Meadows Massacre Legal Papers, 2 vols. with Executive Editor Richard E. Turley, (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017).
• The Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies from the Restoration (with Jennifer Reeder) (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016).
• “Unto All” in Rachel Cope, ed. “No More Strangers: LDS Scholars in Women’s Studies,” Religious Educator, 12:3 (Fall 2011), 139–161.
• “Rebecca Swain Williams: Steadfast and Immovable,” Ensign, 41:4 (April 2011), 38–41 and Liahona, 35:4 (April 2011), 28–31.
• “‘The Scriptures is a Fulfilling’: Sally Parker’s Weave” BYU Studies 44:2 (2005), 110–122.
• “‘Give Up All and Follow Your Lord’: Lucy Mack Smith, Rebecca Swain Williams, Phebe Crosby Peck, Melissa Morgan Dodge, and Olive Boynton Hale, 1831-1841,” BYU Studies 41:1 (Winter 2002), 77–107.

Video Presentations

“I Never Planned to Go to Divinity School,” BYU Women’s Leadership Lecture. Brigham Young University, October 2020