lecture

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s new book A House Full of Females retells the story of early Mormonism through the eyes of early Mormon women and other lesser-known figures. The Pulitzer Prize winning historian says women’s voices often “trouble the old stories” many Latter-day Saints are familiar with today. But believing it is worth the trouble, she writes: “Adding women to the narrative allows us to see the courage, the piety, the generosity, and the foolhardiness of a people hungry for a witness of God’s power.”In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Maxwell Institute is excited to sponsor a lecture by Dr. Ulrich in partnership with the BYU Women’s Study Program and BYU’s Department of History: “Huddling Together”:Rethinking the Position of Women in Early Mormonism WhenTuesday, March 147:00 PM WhereGordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors CenterBrigham Young UniversityProvo, Utah About Laurel Thatcher UlrichLaurel Thatcher Ulrich was born in Sugar City, Idaho. She holds degrees from the University of New Hampshire, University of Utah, and Simmons College. She is 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University and past president of the American Historical Association. Her book A Midwife’s Tale received a Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize. She is immediate past president of the Mormon History Association. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her latest book is A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870.

It has been a few months since Professor James E. Faulconer delivered our annual Laura F. Willes Book of Mormon Lecture, “Sealings and Mercies: Moroni’s Final Exhortation in Moroni 10.” We’re kicking off our new YouTube channel with Faulconer’s fresh perspective on the last chapter of the Book of Mormon.Faulconer teaches in the BYU Philosophy Department and holds the Richard L. Evans Chair of Religious Understanding at BYU. He publishes regularly in journals on topics concerning scripture study and the philosophy of religion.

Lecture: 'Ephrem's Economic Self: Metaphors for the Moral Life' Who: Professor Jeffery Wickes, Saint Louis University When: Thursday April 3, 2014, 11:00 am Where: 3716 HBLL (South Entrance), Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah About the Lecture: The earliest strains of biblical tradition depict sin using the language of 'stain' or 'burden.' But a range of economic metaphors for describing the moral life soon developed in post-biblical Aramaic culture. The Syriac poet Ephrem (d. 373 CE) uses these economic metaphors to describe his own poetic project. This presentation traces the development of this economics of the self, and asks why Ephrem used an explicitly moral vocabulary to depict himself and his theological poems.