Critical Tensions:

Latter-day Saint Art, Devotion, and Design

A symposium with contributors to

Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader

October 10th, 1:00-4:00PM PST
Watch online or attend in-person at Berkeley, California at The Graduate Theological Union

Attend In-person

At The Graduate Theological Union at 2400 Ridge Road, Berkeley California.

Register to attend

Watch Live Online

Stream the event with online registration.

Register online
SYMPOSIUM

Hear from passionate experts

Oct 10th, 1-4PM - GTU Dinner Board Room

Critical Tensions: Latter-day Saint Art, Devotion, and Design is an afternoon of conversation and exploration in partnership with the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, inspired by the Center’s landmark volume Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader.

Glen Nelson will moderate two engaging panels—each featuring thought-provoking presentations followed by audience Q&A. This event is hosted in partnership with the Graduate Theological Union, the most comprehensive center for the graduate study of religion in North America. Register to watch online or attend the event.

learn more & register
EXHIBITION OPENING RECEPTION

Experience LDS Art

Oct 10th, 4-7PM - GTU Library

After the Symposium, the GTU will host an opening reception for Instrumentos de silencio, the striking exhibition by Gonzalo and Susana Silva.

Recently unveiled in New York City, the exhibition explores the collision of music, memory, and technology through the lens of history and colonization of the artists’ home country of Argentina.

Refreshments will be served. No registration needed.

The show will be on display in the GTU Library from October 10-December 12.

more information

Presenting Authors

  • Jennifer Reeder is the nineteenth- century women’s history specialist at the LDS Church History Department in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has co- authored three collections of women’s writings and written a narrative history of Emma Smith. Reeder grew up playing under the quilts her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother sewed, and has an innate interest in folk art. At George Mason University, where she earned her PhD in American history, Reeder studied religious history, memory, and material culture.

  • Josh Probert is an independent historian and historic design consultant who specializes in the material culture of nineteenth-century domestic and religious life. A graduate of the Program in Religion and the Arts at Yale Divinity School and Institute of Sacred Music, he earned a PhD from the University of Delaware in cooperation with the Winterthur Museum.

  • Glen Nelson is the author of thirty-three books, as well as essays, articles, short fiction, and poetry. As a ghostwriter, three of his books have been nonfiction New York Times bestsellers. He curated the museum exhibition John Held, Jr. at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art and co-curated Joseph Paul Vorst: A Retrospective at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah. His most recent books include the first biography of Joseph Paul Vorst and a volume about the lost fiction of John Held, Jr.

  • Mason Kamana Allred is an assistant professor of communication, media, and culture at Brigham Young University, Hawaii. He earned his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, with a designated emphasis in film studies. He is the author of Weimar Cinema, Embodiment, and Historicity (2017) and Seeing Things: Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism (2023).

  • Amanda K. Beardsley is the Cayleff and Sakai Faculty Scholar at San Diego State University and received her PhD in art history from Binghamton University. Her research and publications have ranged from sound studies and feminism in Mormon culture to science and technology studies, gender, and faith.

About the Book:
Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader

As the first expert critical treatment of Latter-day Saint visual art, this award-winning book is the first of its kind. Containing twenty-two essays authored by scholars and experts, it covers a wide range of topics:

  • Hone in on certain historical events like the Paris art mission or the Mormon art and belief movement

  • Jump into unique industries like of temple architecture, or Mormon identity in documentary film

  • Explore select topics like LDS art in Mexico, feminism in LDS art, or the state of contemporary LDS art, and much more.

Part history, part analysis, and wholly an art book, the volume promises a long and engaging journey. It also contains more than 200 elegant reproductions of the Latter-day Saint art and objects discussed within its pages.

Read reviews