It has been a few months since the folks running the Maxwell Institute decided to blow up the venerable FARMS Review and start from scratch with a new publication entitled the Mormon Studies Review.
So how's that project going?
Old FARMS
The new Mormon Studies Review remains nothing but an announcement at this point — an announcement with no visible updates in four months, as far as I can tell. One issue of the MSR was actually published under long-time FARMS Review editor Daniel Peterson, but the Maxwell Institute has since reclassified that single issue as Volume 23, No. 1 of the FARMS Review. The editor's introduction to that orphaned issue of the MSR makes interesting reading. So far the new MSR's publication score is -1, having depublished the only issue ever published but published no new issues. Makes you wonder what they're doing with all that tithing money they're still getting (it's not like the Maxwell Institute's budget was cut when the FARMS Review was axed).
Here is a casual review of Joe Spencer's An Other Testament: On Typology (Salt Press, 2012). Short summary: I like Salt Press. I like Joe Spencer. I like the book. I don't like typology.
Salt Press
On its website, Salt Press describes itself as "an independent academic press dedicated to publishing books that engage Mormon texts, show familiarity with the best contemporary thinking, remain accessible to non-specialists, and foreground the continuing relevance of Mormon ideas." The editorial board is a mix of prominent LDS bloggers and LDS academics. The publisher promotes "independent and open publishing," notably by making PDF copies of books available for free download. These are the right people doing the right sort of thing to upgrade the quality of scriptural commentary and discussion available to the general LDS audience. And this is a great publishing model; I hope it continues to thrive. Christmas is coming: buy all three of their books for someone you love.
After Theory Terry Eagleton on whatever it is that comes after postmodernism. My Post
Experiments in Ethics A moral philosopher's surprisingly entertaining critique of traditional philosophical ethics using modern experimental data. • My post
Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism Givens and Grow's warts-and-all biography of this energetic missionary, author, and apostle whose LDS career spanned Joseph Smith's life, the emigration to Utah, and Brigham Young's early leadership of the Church in Utah. My Review
Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique The prolific astrophysicist and science writer John Gribbin reviews where Earth came from, why it is here, and how it will end (in a rain of cometary chunks from the Oort Cloud in about a million years). Read all about it in my post The Fate of the Earth.
Ancient Israelite Religion Susan Niditch explores myth, ritual, experience, and ethics in the Hebrew Bible and using surviving archeological artifacts, revealing a surprisingly diverse ancient Israelite religion. • My Post
Davies: The Mormon Culture of Salvation Uses a variety of models to look at LDS doctrine and cultural practice related to death and salvation, with a lengthy consideration of the "world religion" question. My Post • Pub Note
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