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Jan Shipps | |
|---|---|
 Shipps addressing a meeting of theJohn Whitmer Historical Association in 2003 | |
| Born | Jo Ann Barnett Shipps 1929 (age 95–96) |
| Nationality | American |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | The Mormons in Politics (1965) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | |
| Sub-discipline | History of the Latter Day Saint movement |
| School or tradition | New Mormon history |
| Institutions | Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis |
Jo Ann Barnett Shipps[1] (born 1929), known asJan Shipps, is anAmericanhistorian specializing inMormon history, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century to the present. Shipps is generally regarded as the foremost non-Mormon scholar of theLatter Day Saint movement, having given particular attention tothe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Her first book on the subject wasMormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition published by theUniversity of Illinois Press. In 2000, the University of Illinois Press published her bookSojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons, in which she interweaves her own history of Mormon-watching with 16 essays on Mormon history and culture.
Shipps has aPh.D. inhistory. She taught atIndiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis for many years and is now professor emeritus of history andreligious studies. Her interest in Mormonism was sparked when she lived briefly with her young family in Logan,Utah[2] in 1960–61,[3] graduating fromUtah State University in 1961.[4] She earned her PhD degree atUniversity of Colorado Boulder in 1965, with a dissertation onThe Mormons in Politics: The First Hundred Years.[5]
A lifelong practicingMethodist, Shipps is widely respected inMormon historical circles, as well as secular historical circles, for her ability to understandMormonism on its own terms while maintaining sufficient distance as an outsider. Shipps served as a senior editor ofThe Journals of William McLellin, 1831–1836, the earliest extended account of the Mormon experience. She was the first non-Mormon and the first woman elected president of theMormon History Association (MHA). Her articles about the Latter Day Saints have been published in a number of both academic and popular journals, and she speaks frequently about Mormonism to both Mormon and non-Mormon audiences.
Shipps has studied how perceptions of Mormons have changed over time and the process by which Latter Day Saints have gained a sense of distinctive self-identity. She has established academic standards for the use of the terms Latter Day Saint, Latter-day Saint, and Mormon for the various churches and movements that trace their origins back toJoseph Smith. Her scholarship brought attention to the "doughnut syndrome";[a] cases where histories of the Western United States ignore or give superficial treatment to thehistory of Utah territory, Mormonism and Mormon colonization. This syndrome, Shipps argues, may be due to the fact that Utah and Mormon history is dramatically different from the settlement of the rest of the West. While Western history usually emphasizes the individualistic, universalistic nature of earlyWestern US society, the settlement of the Utah Territory was characterized by ordered and communal societies.
In her 2000 bookSojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons, Shipps documents what she calls, "the gathering of the scattered and the scattering of the gathering." Shipps details how the LDS Church changed its central gathering point from Utah to localstakes anywhere in the world as spiritual, cultural and physical gathering points.
Since retiring from being a professor, Shipps continues to write about Latter Day Saint history and consults with journalists about news on the movement. In 2005, she gave a paper on the LDS Church at a global religion at a conference commemorating Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, held at theLibrary of Congress. She also keynoted an April 2007 conference in Arkansas honoring early apostleParley P. Pratt. The conference marked the sesquicentennial of Pratt's 1857 murder and the bicentennial of his birth.
Shipps has long been an avid promoter of scholarly associations. She has served as president of the MHA (1979–80),[6] theJohn Whitmer Historical Association (2004–05), and theAmerican Society of Church History (2006).
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| Preceded by | President of theMormon History Association 1979–1980 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of theAmerican Society of Church History 2006–2007 | Succeeded by |
