Sunstone West

Those of you who will be in the vicinity of Cupertino, CA on Saturday, March 27 may want to hop on over to Sunstone West for a few hours. The preliminary program contains some interesting abstracts, including the following:

• A presentation by Todd Compton investigating marriage ages in nineteenth century America in order to evaluate the propriety of Joseph Smith's marriages to young teenage girls.
• A paper by Connell O'Donovan that "traces public and private anti-miscegenation statements made by early church leaders--including Joseph Smith--from expressions of disgust and horror bolstered by scriptural prooftexting and prophetic language to shore up its theological foundations, to 20th Century political accusations of a joint 'Negro' and Communist conspiracy to bring societal and moral upheaval to the United States."
• A presentation by George D. Smith that appears to summarize the contents of his new book on Nauvoo Polygamy (with Todd Compton responding).
• Ben Clarke's discussion of the "increasingly marginal place for the Book of Moses in the LDS canon" and its possible implications for the way Mormons think about the historicity and canonicity of their other scriptures.
• Alongside Clarke's presentation in the 11:20 am - 12:40 pm time slot will be my discussion of the "missing papyrus theory" vis-a-vis the Book of Abraham. (Due to a clerical error, I'm not on the preliminary program yet.)
• Newell Bringhurst will present on Joseph Smith's "Revelation and Prophecy on War" and the so-called "White Horse Prophecy."

There will, of course, also be several sessions on Prop 8/gay marriage, as well as the usual "This I Believe"-type personal narrative sessions that tend to be so popular at Sunstone (click here to watch some from last year).

Full symposium registration is 35 dollars. Students can get in for 15. Head on over to the Sunstone website to pre-register. Hope to see you there!