The Friends of the Academy Library invite you to a Reading and Book Launch by Tom Simpson, Instructor in Religion and Philosophy, in celebration of his new book American Universities and the Birth of Modern Mormonism, 1867–1940. The reading will be held on Wednesday September 14th from 7:00-8:00 pm in Rockefeller Hall. The reading is free and open to the public.
Tom Simpson is an author and teacher focusing on the intersections of religion, race, gender, and human rights at Phillips Exeter Academy since 2008. Simpson is the author of two essays published in the magazine Numéro Cinq and is currently working on a collection of literary essays about religion, violence, and recovery in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reviews for American Universities and the Birth of Modern Mormonism, 1867–1940 :
“An elegant, original contribution and a must-read for anyone interested in American religion and the life of the mind. Thomas W. Simpson’s scholarly heavy lifting–painstakingly tracing the Progressive Era Mormons who passed through American universities–forces a substantial reassessment of previous ‘Americanization’ theses. Simpson decenters polygamy (no
mean feat) and places intellectual history and education at the heart of LDS navigation of both modernity and national identity.”
–J. Spencer Fluhman, Brigham Young University
“American Universities and the Birth of Modern Mormonismtells an important story of the development of Mormon intellectual life. The risks experienced by young Mormons and church leaders alike as students departed the ‘kingdom’ for education in the early part of the twentieth century is an essential and necessary part of the history of the formation of an educated Mormon community and the creation of a true Mormon intellectual community.”
–Jan Shipps, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
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