2023 Arrington Mormon History Lecturer Announced

Award-winning author, historian and professor Jared Farmer will deliver “Music & the Unspoken Truth,” the 28th Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture at 7 p.m. Oct. 5 at the Russell/Wanlass Performance Hall.

Farmer’s lecture will be an homage to the “Music & the Spoken Word” TV and radio show, which has had a weekly broadcast since 1929. Like the show, Farmer’s performative lecture will be a meditation on the relationship between sound, religion and place.

Farmer is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and a former Andrew Carnegie Fellow. He is also the author of four books, including On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape, winner of the Francis Parkman Prize, and Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees.

Though he was born in Provo, Utah, Farmer’s alma mater is Utah State University. USU Libraries is excited and honored to welcome him back for this event.

The Arrington Mormon History Lecture is sponsored by Utah State University Libraries, the USU Religious Studies program and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The lecture honors former Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints historian Leonard J. Arrington, whose papers are housed in USU’s Special Collections and Archives. The lecture is open and free to the public. Tickets and reservations are not required.

For more information, visit https://library.usu.edu/news/2023/arrington.