Conference Reports: Editor’s Introduction

The many recent conferences on Mormonism, or sessions at larger conferences that deal with Mormon issues, show that Mormonism has become one of the hotter topics in the academy today—in part because Mormonism is such a useful lens for looking at a variety of interesting issues, from literature and film studies to history to cultural studies. While many of the papers presented at these conferences are eventually expanded and refined and published in journals, others never make it into print. Rather than let them languish on the authors’ hard drives, we decided to publish a Conference Report, which includes many papers just as they were presented. They may be a little rough, but that’s part of their interest: we see here the first drafts of the sort of academic work that will change how we think about Mormonism in decades to come.