Quincy D. Newell Lecture for The Religious Studies Program

Quincy D. Newell (Kingdon Fellow, 2023-2024) will be giving the lecture “Black and American Indian Mormons and the Scripturalization of Mormon Texts” for theReligious Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Thursday, November 2, 2023 at 4:00P.M. in Van Hise 1418. For more information click here.

Abstract: One feature that set the Mormon movement apart from other new versions of Christianity in the nineteenth century was its embrace of additional texts as scriptures—The Book of Mormon joined the Bible at the inception of the movement, and the scriptural canon soon came to include other works as well. In this talk, I explore how African Americans and American Indians who affiliated with the Mormon movement adopted these texts as scripture and interpreted them in ways that supported full racial inclusion by the movement.