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Schedule of Events

Wednesday, March 28th in SC 213a

12:00-1:00 p.m. ~ Author Readings (sponsored by the UVU English Department)

Joanna Brooks

Jana Reiss



Joanna Brooks will read from her new memoir The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories from an American Faith, which reveals what it’s like to grow up in a world where angels stand at our bedsides and ancestors know our names, where Coca-Cola is forbidden fruit and Marie Osmond is a style icon. This is a story about leaving behind the innocence of childhood belief and embracing the complications and heartbreaks that come to every adult life of faith.

Jana Riess will also read from her recently-released memoir Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor, in which Riess recounts her year of attempting twelve different spiritual practices in a quest to become more saintly. Although Riess begins with great plans for success, she finds to her growing humiliation that she is failing–not just at some of the practices, but at every single one. What emerges is a funny yet vulnerable story of the quest for spiritual perfection and the reality of spiritual failure, which turns out to be a valuable practice in and of itself.

Thursday, March 29th in Library Auditorium

8:30-8:45 a.m. ~ Welcome

8:45-9:45 a.m. ~ Mormon Studies and the Internet

James Faulconer, “Professing on the Internet: What’s a Guy to Do?”

Ardis E. Parshall, “Blazing a New Trail: Doing History in the Age of the Internet”

Patrick Mason, “Mormon Blogs, Mormon Studies, and the Mormon Mind”

10:00-11:00 a.m. ~ Keynote Address

Joanna Brooks, “The Challenge of Mormon Studies for the Digital Age”

11:10-12:00 p.m. ~ Panel Discussion

James Faulconer, Ardis E. Parshall, Patrick Mason, and Joanna Brooks

12:00-1:00 p.m. ~ Break for Lunch

1:00-2:15 p.m. ~ Journeys of Faith on the Internet



John Dehlin, “Why Mormons Leave, and How the Internet is Helping”

Scott Gordon, “Fostering Faith and Countering Criticism: The Role of Apologetics in in the Information Age”

Rosemary Avance, “Seeing the Light: Mormon Conversion and Deconversion Narratives in On- and Offline Worlds”

2:30-3:45 p.m. ~ Panel Discussion

John Dehlin, Scott Gordon, and Rosemary Avance

5:30-6:45 p.m. ~ Reception for participants and invited guests

7:00-9:00 p.m. ~ Eugene England Memorial Lecture

Patrick Mason, “‘Blessed Are All the Peacemakers’: Toward a Mormon Theology and Ethic of Peace”

Friday, March 30th in Library Auditorium

8:30-9:00 a.m. ~ Welcome

9:00-9:50 a.m. ~ Digital Religion and the Public Face of the Church

Buddy Blankenfeld and Lyman Kirkland, “Join the Conversation: Engaging the Media and Public through LDS Newsroom”

Greg Droubay,Who Are These People?: The Story of the ‘I’m a Mormon’ Campaign

10:00-10:50 a.m. ~ Keynote

Alan Cooperman, “Insights from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s Survey of Mormons in America”

11:00-11:50 a.m. ~ From Blogosphere to Bloggernacle

Jana Riess, “One Voice in the Mormon Bloggernacle Choir: A Personal Journey”

Kristine Haglund, “Homemaking as Performance Art in a Gendered Babylon”

12:00-1:00 p.m. ~ Break for Lunch

1:00-1:50 p.m. ~ Avatars and Second Life: Mormon Identity and the Internet

David Charles, “Digital Religion, Convergence, and Pluralism”

Gideon Burton, “Evolving Mormon Identity in the Digital Age”

David Scott, “Seeing is Believing: The Virtual Construction of Mormon Identity and Belief in Second Life”

2:00-3:00 p.m. ~ Panel Discussion

Jana Riess, Kristine Haglund, David Charles, Gideon Burton, David Scott

For more information, contact Boyd Petersen at boyd.petersen@uvu.edu

***The conference will be streamed live here.

BCC will be liveblogging both days of the conference.