A Shared Endeavor

when quincy newell and benjamin park stepped into their role as editors of the Mormon Studies Review in 2019, they inherited a journal in the midst of transformation. The most notable changes involved its editorial base and its evolving engagement with broader currents in religious studies. Under their guidance, the Review not only maintained its reputation as “a one-stop shop source for discussions of current scholarship on Mormonism” but also a central venue where Mormon studies’ contours were identified, drawn, and redrawn.1 Their editing of roundtables, review articles, and book reviews bridged the gap between Mormon studies and the broader field of religious studies. The Review transformed under their leadership, pushing boundaries while remaining a premier publication in Mormon studies and an indispensable resource for scholars and educators.Recognizing the enormity of the task before us, we are thrilled to introduce ourselves as the new coeditors of the Mormon Studies Review. We aim to build on their legacy and the foundational work of previous editorial teams led by J. Spencer Fluhman, as well as Newell and Park, as we explore the rich possibilities of studying Mormonism within the broader context of religious studies. Having worked with Newell and Park over the previous year in preparation for assuming editorial control of the journal, we cannot adequately express their dedication to the journal and Mormon studies without sounding hyperbolic. As this new chapter of the journal unfolds, we extend our heartfelt gratitude for their exceptional tenure as editors.Both of us became involved in the field of Mormon studies early in our academic journeys. From the outset, we were drawn to questions that placed Mormonism within broader discussions about the nature of defining religion and understanding religious experience in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In each of our endeavors, situating Mormon studies within the study of American religion was among our primary interests.Cristina M. Gagliano is an independent scholar in Quebec, Canada. She previously worked as an assistant professor of humanities at Utah Tech University and has contributed to Mormon studies through her editorial work with the Review and the Journal of Mormon History, as well as serving as book review editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Joseph R. Stuart is an assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University, and his research engages the co-construction of race, religion, and gender in US-based Black freedom movements. He has likewise served on the board of the Journal of Mormon History and as its book review editor. The friendships and collaborations we formed in Mormon studies and beyond inform our commitment to multidisciplinarity and publishing new, emerging ideas and methodologies. We hope these endeavors challenge the way people think about how Mormonism is studied, taught, and understood in the academy.As always, the Review benefits from a world-class editorial advisory board. We are deeply grateful to work alongside such a thoughtful and accomplished group of scholars, whose insights and commitments shape the journal's direction. The board offers invaluable support, suggesting innovative themes, finding smart reviewers, and ensuring the Review fulfills its mission. Indeed, the advisory board remains one of the journal's greatest strengths, bringing together scholars from across disciplines, geographies, and methodological approaches. With the board, we are especially committed to continuing the Review's mission of fostering scholarship that is both global in scope and intellectually expansive, welcoming contributions from within and beyond the US academy. This global perspective ensures that the journal remains a platform for scholars from all over the world to share their research and ideas, fostering a sense of connection and community among our readers.Since its inception, the Review has been the leading venue for critically engaging the evolution of Mormon studies as an academic discipline. It has also been much more than that, functioning as a mirror that reflects the field's shifts, tensions, and aspirations. Among the journal's most outstanding features is that it serves as both a platform for scholars of Mormonism to publish new ideas and as a living archive of sorts for the field. It is, itself, a study of the study of Mormonism. The purpose of the journal uniquely positions it to welcome scholars from diverse disciplines, moving beyond the historical methods that shaped the early years of Mormon studies. With each new issue, the Review invites fresh voices and perspectives, considering Mormonism as both a significant subject of inquiry and a lens to explore broader themes in religious studies.The Review, like the field of Mormon studies itself, must be dynamic and ever-evolving. Like our predecessors, we aim for the Review to be a publication that anyone studying religion can rely on for the latest insights and scholarship on Mormonism that follows broader interdisciplinary trends. We share the conviction that the study of Mormonism is not a niche endeavor but one that speaks to—and is shaped by—many fields, subfields, and disciplines. We believe that when scholars study Mormonism as an “object,” they find new ways of understanding how religion works, including how it is maintained and contested.As in issues past, each issue of the Review will include a thematic forum from a diverse range of scholars that illuminates the importance of emerging religious studies approaches to understanding Mormonism. In our first coedited issue, we turn to “lived religion”—a theme that has gained traction through the work of such scholars as David Hall, Nancy Ammerman, Robert Orsi, Colleen McDannell, and others. We are interested in what it means to study Mormonism through not only institutions and doctrines but also the textures of everyday life, especially the practices, objects, and relationships that make belief tangible. This “theology of the streets” reveals what matters in a religion, from Stassi Cram's ministry as president of the Community of Christ to spirited debates about the “Mormonness” of Momtok (although withholding questions on whether it can—or should—survive).We hope these essays help to paint a more comprehensive and accurate picture of how members of Mormonism's religious branches practice their faith. We begin with Kristine Wright, who starts with a provocation: What does religion feel like? Using affect theory, Wright accounts for how Mormonism is generated through sensation and tactile experience. In Brittany Romanello's ethnographic account of immigrant mothers in the US, she analyzes the way that Mormon institutional beliefs are held in tension with the experience of raising an LGBTQ+ child. She reveals the multiplicity of ways families engage with kinship norms and how this speaks to broader trends in Latter-day Saint religio-kinship politics.Then, moving beyond the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Paul A. Anthony and Hannah Jung present accounts of how early members of the Mormon fundamentalist movement practiced their faith during a time of heightened surveillance. Using previously untapped sources compiled by the FBI in 1943 and 1944, Anthony documents the mundane realities of polygamous lives, offering a counterpoint to the sensationalized narratives that dominate historical and popular accounts. Finally, Jung examines how polygamy created a problem for a religious tradition concerned with recordkeeping. Historians of Mormonism have long benefited from Joseph Smith's revelatory imperative to maintain historical records. Paradoxically, though, Jung shows these records became tools for state surveillance. Taken together, we hope these essays reveal the texture of Mormonism's many lived varieties.Like past issues, the thirteenth installment of the Review highlights the best new books on Mormonism, broadly defined. The Review's review essays are more substantial than typical book reviews, asking reviewers to place new books within the broader study of religion. This issue includes a review of Benjamin A. Park's American Zion: A New History of Mormonism and W. Paul Reeve, Christopher B. Rich Jr., and LaJean Purcell Carruth's The Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah. These reviews, both insightful and thought-provoking, will help readers explore the most fruitful questions in Mormon studies and how the study of Mormonism can inform other fields of scholarship.The foundation of the Review remains our extensive collection of book reviews, providing an overview of the latest scholarship and groundbreaking research on Mormonism. In 2019, when Park and Newell took over the Review, they noted that “the Mormon moment appears to have ended, and no reprise seems to be in the offing,” yet they predicted the continued flourishing of Mormon studies.2 Our growing list of book reviews affirms their prediction. This year's issue includes a review of Mason Allred's Seeing Things: Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism, Richard Lyman Bushman's Joseph Smith's Gold Plates: A Cultural History, and Leah Sotille's When the Moon Turns to Blood. In addition to publishing standard academic book reviews, the Review continues to be a venue for exploring how popular media contribute to scholarly inquiry. In the last year, Heretic and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives captivated movie and streaming platform audiences, once again forcing scholars to consider the seemingly endless popular interest in Mormonism.Our editorial work is a labor of love. We can't wait for you to see what's next.