03/08/2026
The next Latter-day Histories Lecture: “State of the Field on Race: A Roundtable Discussion” will be held on March 16th at 7pm MDT. This lecture will be chaired by Christopher Jones, and featured by Bri Romanello, Dwain Coleman, Farina King, and Matt Harris.
Register using the link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/8717646925689/WN_8MDMHfDRRb23hKlTusfq2A
Read their bios below:
Christopher Jones is assistant professor of history at BYU and editor of the Journal of Mormon History. He is the author of Connections: Early American Methodism in the Revolutionary Atlantic World (forthcoming, Cornell University Press) and co-editor (with David Golding) of Missionary Interests: Protestant and Mormon Missions in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Cornell University Press, 2024).
Brittany “Bri” Romanello, trained initially as a sociocultural anthropologist and ethnographer, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Latin American Studies at th University of Arkanas. They specialize
in qualitative and community methodologies that observe the intersections of immigration, gender, race, and religion in the American West. Her upcoming projects examine sister sites in the U.S. and Brazil, investigating how both immigrant and conservative religious communities navigate local and online narratives about gender, romance, and political engagement in the shadow of increasingly prevalent state surveillance and social change.
Dwain Coleman is an assistant professor of history at the University of Utah, specializing in African American, Civil War-era, environmental, and Latter-day Saints history. He is also the co-director of the Iowa Colored Conventions Digital Project, which examines the transformative 19th-century American civil rights movement known as the colored conventions movement in Iowa. Dr. Coleman is currently working on a book that examines how Black Civil War veterans and their families utilized the political capital of Black military service to redefine American citizenship and secure equal rights.
Farina King, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is the Horizon Chair of Native American Ecology and Culture and Full Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Her research centers on Native American oral histories, especially among her Diné relatives and connections in Oklahoma. She received her Ph.D. at Arizona State University in History. She is the author of various publications, including The Earth Memory Compass: Diné Landscapes and Education in the Twentieth Century; co-author with Michael P. Taylor and James R. Swensen of Returning Home: Diné Creative Works from the Intermountain Indian School; and author of Diné dóó Gáamalii: Navajo Latter-day Saint Experiences in the Twentieth Century. She is a co-editor of The Lyda Conley Series on Trailblazing Indigenous Futures with the University Press of Kansas; co-editor of the Palgrave Studies in Oral History; and Editor in Chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Indigenous Studies. She is the past President of the Southwest Oral History Association (2021-2022).
Matthew L. Harris is Professor of History and Director of Legal Studies at Colorado State University-Pueblo. Among his many publications in Mormons Studies include Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Oxford University Press, 2024), which won the Smith-Pettit Best Book Award; Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right (University of Utah Press, 2020);The LDS Gospel Topics Series: A Scholarly Engagement (Signature Books, 2020); Thunder from the Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics (University of Illinois Press, 2019); and The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History (University of Illinois Press, 2015). His most recent article is titled “Saving the Constitution” with White Christian Nationalism: Ezra Taft Benson, W. Cleon Skousen, and Their Attempt to Solicit the Help of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover," which was published in the fall 2025 issue of Dialogue. Harris received a BA and MA in history from Brigham Young University and an M.Phil and PhD, also in history, from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. His teaching and scholarship explore the intersectionality of religion and law, race and religion, civil rights and race construction, and right-wing extremism, particularly among religious groups. An award-winning professor, Harris teaches classes on Church and State, Civil Rights, the Constitution, African American History, US Legal History, and American Religions. His classes have been broadcast on CSPAN and his research has been covered by a variety of media outlets, including the Religious News Service, National Public Radio, CSPAN, Newsweek, Salt Lake Tribune, Longreads, and others. In addition, he has appeared on dozens of podcasts, discussing a variety of topics dealing with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is the president of the John Whitmer Historical Association.tproor cn
