Taunalyn Ford is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship where her current book projects focus on Latter-day Saints in India and their intersection with the religions of India. She received her BA and MA degrees at Brigham Young University and her PhD in History of Christianity and Religions of North America at Claremont Graduate University. Her dissertation “Conceptualizing Global Religions: An Investigation of Mormonism in India,” was awarded best dissertation from the Mormon History Association in 2018. Prior to her appointment at the Maxwell Institute, she was an adjunct professor in the BYU Religion department. She currently serves on the board of the Mormon History Association.
Education
Ph.D., History of Christianity and Religions of North America: Claremont Graduate University, 2018
Dissertation: “Conceptualizing Global Religions: An Investigation of Mormonism in India.”
Minor: World Religions
M.A., Humanities Minor: Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University, 1995
B.A., History, Brigham Young University, 1990
Book Chapters
“Indian Caste and Gospel Culture,” in Global Mormonism and East Asia ed. Laurie Maffly-Kipp and Melissa Inouye (Forthcoming, University of Illinois Press).
“Dueling Orientalisms: Scottish Missionaries Meet the Mormons in 1850s Western India,” in Missionary Interests: Protestant and Mormon Missions in the 19th and 20th Centuries ed. David Golding and Christopher Cannon Jones (Forthcoming, Cornel University Press).
“Mormon Women’s Oral History: Spinning Strands of Narrative Straw into Archives of Gold,” in Origins and Destinations: Forty Years of Mormon Women’s Histories ed. Sheree Bench and Andrea Radke-Moss (Forthcoming, Greg Kofford Books).
“‘Her Borders Must Be Enlarged’: Evolving Conceptions of Zion,” in Raising the Standard of Truth: Exploring the History and Teachings of the Early Restoration ed. Scott C. Esplin (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2020).
“A Mormon Pilgrimage to Sikh Sacred Practice Text and Temple,” in Learning From Other Religious Traditions: Leaving Room for Holy Envy ed. Hans Gustafson (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
“The Internationalization of Mormonism: Indications from India,” in Out of Obscurity: Mormonism Since 1945 ed. Patrick Mason and John Turner (Oxford University Press, August 2016).
“‘Her Borders Must Be Enlarged’: Evolving Conceptions of Zion,” in Foundations of the Restoration: Fulfillment of the Covenant Purposes ed. Craig James Ostler, Michael Hubbard MacKay and Barbara Morgan Gardner (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016).
“Belinda Marden Pratt,” in Fearless in the Cause: Remarkable Stories from Women in Church History, edited by Richard E. Turley Jr. and Brittany Chapman (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, April, 2016).
“Shifting Focus to International Mormonism: The LDS Church in India,” in The Worldwide Church: Mormonism as a Global Religion, ed. Michael A. Goodman and Mauro Properzi (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2016).
“Relief Society: Perspectives from Daughters in My Kingdom,” in Mormon Women Have their Say: Essays from the Claremont Oral History Collection, ed. Claudia Bushman and Caroline Kline (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013).
‘”The Joy and Peace I Experienced Was Inexpressible’ Belinda Marden Pratt,” in Women of Faith in the Latter Days, vol. 1, ed. Richard E. Turley Jr. and Brittany Chapman (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011).
Journal and Magazine Articles
“Picturing Pioneers in India,” Ensign July 2020.
“Race and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in India,” with Joe Chelladurai, and Vinna Chintaram, “ Mormon Studies Review 7 (2020): 52-60.
“Studying Sikhs and Meeting Mormons: A Comparative Study of Women in Two of the Newest World Religions,” Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory (Taylor and Francis, 24 November 2016).