The Mormon History Association invites proposals for its annual conference to be held in Provo, Utah, June 3–6, 2027.
Set in the heart of Utah Valley, Provo is where Indigenous land, Mormon settlement, institutional expansion, academies of higher learning, and global religious influence converge. Few places in the American West so clearly display the continual remaking of landscape, community, and faith.
Long before Mormon settlement, Utah Valley was home to Indigenous peoples whose lives and lands were disrupted by European colonization. The arrival of Latter-day Saints brought profound change to the people and environment of Utah Valley. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries Provo emerged as a center of importance as Brigham Young University, the Missionary Training Center, the high-tech industry, and immigration have made the city both intensely local and unmistakably global.
Today, the region stands at another moment of visible transformation. The long-anticipated renovation of the Salt Lake Temple, the transformation of the Provo Tabernacle into the Provo City Center Temple, and the reconstruction of the Provo Rock Canyon Temple signal both continuity and change in sacred architecture and religious experience. Waves of immigration—including significant Latino communities in recent decades—have reshaped the cultural and religious fabric of Utah County. The memory of Japanese American incarceration near Delta, Utah, continues to inform regional and national reckonings with race, citizenship, and belonging. Rapid economic growth and rising affluence have not only altered the physical but also the social landscape, from foothill housing developments to expanding technology corridors. At the same time, environmental pressures—water scarcity, air quality, land use, and climate change—pose urgent questions about stewardship and sustainability in a region long imagined as Zion.
The Mormon History Association 2027 conference program committee invites proposals that engage the theme of transformation broadly conceived. We welcome academically rigorous papers that examine topics such as conquest and settlement, migration and diaspora, race and ethnicity, gender and family, architecture and sacred space, theology and lived religion, economic change, environmental history, public memory, material culture, local and global Mormonism, and institutional development. Proposals need not focus on the Provo area; we encourage submissions spanning all periods and broad perspectives of Mormon history. Individual papers, complete sessions, and roundtables are all welcome. The committee particularly encourages participation by independent scholars, undergrad and graduate students, and those from historically underrepresented communities.
The deadline for proposals is November 1, 2026. Questions may be sent to the program committee co-chairs at mha.programchair@gmail.com. Responses to submissions will be sent by January 16, 2027.
In proceeding, I understand that the information submitted will be used to create the 2027 MHA conference program. Names, affiliations, paper/panel titles and presentation descriptions cannot be changed after this form is submitted unless otherwise stated.
All proposals must be submitted by active MHA members. Memberships expire annually in September.
Your membership number appears on your renewal invoice. If you need assistance locating it, contact the MHA Executive Director at christine@mormonhistoryassociation.org or text 801-793-4966.
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