Scholars & Saints
Scholars & Saints is the official podcast of the University of Virginia’s Mormon Studies program, housed in the Department of Religious Studies. Scholars & Saints is a venue of public scholarship that promotes respectful dialogue about Latter Day Saint traditions among laypersons and academics.
Scholars & Saints
Inside UVA Mormon Studies (feat. Laurie Maffly-Kipp)
On today's bonus episode of Scholars & Saints, host Nicholas Shrum sits down with UVA's Richard Lyman Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies Laurie Maffly-Kipp. The two discuss Professor Maffly-Kipp's academic background and entrance into Mormon Studies, her goals and ongoing initiatives within the program, and what makes UVA such a unique place for the study of Mormonism. If you're looking to learn more about UVA Mormon Studies, and how Mormon Studies programs function at academic institutions and with the broader public, then this episode is for you!
Make sure to visit the UVA Mormon Studies website to learn more about our upcoming events, scholarly resources, library collection, and other announcements. You can also give to support UVA Mormon Studies in our endeavor to promote scholarly research and facilitate better public understanding of all branches of Mormonism.
00;00;02;01 - 00;00;32;06
Nicholas Shrum
You're listening to Scholars and Saints. The UVA mormon Studies podcast. I'm your host, Nicholas Shrum, a PhD candidate in American religions at the University of Virginia. On this podcast, we dive into the academic study of Mormonism. We engage recent and classic scholarship, interview prominent and up and coming thinkers in the field, and reflect on Mormonism relevance to the broader study of religion, scholars, and saints is brought to you by support from the Richard Lyman Bushman Endowed Professorship of Mormon Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.
00;00;32;09 - 00;00;56;00
Nicholas Shrum
The podcast goal is to discuss some of the most pressing issues and cutting edge methods in Mormon studies, and put them in conversation with scholarship from the discipline of religious studies. While the podcast content explores Mormonism, the views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any organizations they represent or study, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and the University of Virginia.
00;01;04;24 - 00;01;23;23
Nicholas Shrum
Today on the podcast, I speak with Professor Larry Math Lee Kip, the Richard Lyman Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies at the University of Virginia. Professor Matthew Kip began her time as chair at the beginning of the fall 2024 semester after the inaugural chair holder, Professor Kathleen Flake, retired the previous spring, having been in the position for just over one year.
00;01;23;26 - 00;01;46;06
Nicholas Shrum
Professor Matthew Kip and I sat down to talk about her educational and professional background, and her introduction to the academic study of Mormonism. She reflects on the place of the program, her experiences teaching at UVA, and her interactions with the Mormon studies community. Professor math Lee Kip also discusses her goals and vision for the program, including the various conferences, workshops, collection, acquisitions, fellowships, and more.
00;01;46;08 - 00;02;10;17
Nicholas Shrum
For those unfamiliar with the specifics of a program like the one at UVA, this is a really great episode. To learn more about what it has to offer scholars, the Mormon community, and the broader University of Virginia and academic world. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation with Professor Lori Math Lee. Kip.
00;02;10;19 - 00;02;31;24
Nicholas Shrum
Welcome listeners to another episode of Scholars and Saints, the UVA mormon Studies Podcast. Really excited to have, one of our, featured guests from the University of Virginia. One of the first times that we've had, somebody from UVA on the podcast, and it is the Richard Lyman Bushman chair of Mormon Studies. Laurie Maffly-Kipp.
00;02;31;24 - 00;02;59;10
Nicholas Shrum
Professor Maffly-Kip has been the chair of Mormon studies here at UVA for just over a year. And really excited to have her on the podcast today to talk about some of her vision and goals. Her introduction into Mormon studies, future initiatives, and also just to get to know her better. As many listeners know and as people that, have interacted with me, this is a really broad podcast.
00;02;59;11 - 00;03;23;22
Nicholas Shrum
It has listenership from across the United States and around the world. It has listeners that are both members of the church, and that listeners that aren't members of the church, listeners that are academics and then listeners that are not academics. And so we thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce the audience, the listeners to this podcast, to the person that is leading this program at the University of Virginia.
00;03;23;23 - 00;03;27;16
Nicholas Shrum
So welcome. Professor Matthew kept to the podcast.
00;03;27;18 - 00;03;30;17
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Thank you, Nicholas, good to be here to begin.
00;03;30;18 - 00;03;46;15
Nicholas Shrum
I was hoping that you'd be able to introduce yourself a little a little bit more. Talk about, how your educational background, your previous academic positions, and then if you could give us a little bit of, background into how you got into Mormon studies.
00;03;46;17 - 00;04;15;08
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Sure. Let's see where to start. Well, just to to start before my before my, formal education a little bit, because I think it's important to the, the larger story is, having been raised in Northern California. And being in communities where even though I am not a member of, of the church myself, certainly had a lot of a lot of friends who were members.
00;04;15;11 - 00;04;39;29
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
But then I went to college on the East Coast, and, had got a liberal arts education at Amherst College in religious studies and English and then wanted to go to graduate school. So I went to Yale University and study to study American religious history, mostly 19th century. That was sort of my my era that I was most interested in.
00;04;40;02 - 00;05;02;19
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
My degree from there, my PhD is in history. But I also have an Ma in religious studies. So I kind of traversed both of those worlds, which may not mean much to folks sort of outside of academia. So I can say more about that if you want me to, but, I also have taught most of my career I've taught in religious studies departments.
00;05;02;21 - 00;05;24;15
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So first at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, then at the John C Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in Saint Louis. And now back. I say back because I feel like it's a return to public university, the public universities sector and to the East Coast. The Upper South, now at the University of Virginia.
00;05;24;18 - 00;05;50;15
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So that's, that's what my background and, to say something about sort of what I was doing when I was studying and how I came to do what I now do. I came to Yale when I was a graduate student there in the 80s at a time when Western history was having a big renaissance, that the new Western history, as they called it, that meaning, let's look again at the history of the American West and think about it in different ways.
00;05;50;15 - 00;06;26;07
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And it was a really exciting time to be there. There was great work going on in environmental history and women's history, labor history, questions of race and ethnicity. There was very little on religion, which is what struck me most about it. I sort of saw this open field. The only thing anyone talked about was Mormons, which is not a bad thing to talk about, of course, but it struck me that there was probably a lot more going on, and so I purposely didn't study Mormons at the time because I thought, well, that's the one thing that people are know more about.
00;06;26;09 - 00;06;53;03
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So instead, I ended up working on evangelical religion in the early 19th century and looking at the movement of missionaries to California during the gold rush. What happened when, ministers from the East Coast went running out west to try to save the souls of miners coming from all over the world into this very, very, mobile, fragmented society.
00;06;53;06 - 00;07;26;03
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So in some ways, the pieces were in place to study Mormonism later on Western history. I was always interested in missionaries. And questions of racial and ethnic difference. Since then, I, I'm when I moved to North Carolina, I also became very interested in African American religious history. So I ended up, writing and teaching a lot on in African American religion and only gradually turned to study Mormons.
00;07;26;06 - 00;07;35;19
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So that's sort of the background. I can tell you a little bit about, you know, how I got into Mormon studies. If you want to hear more about that.
00;07;35;22 - 00;07;57;27
Nicholas Shrum
Yeah. I think listeners would be really interested to to learn how especially somebody that went to an institution like Yale. I would actually love to hear you talk. And you don't have to at this point, but maybe later in the conversation talk about how you think about this difference or the relationship between something like religious studies that you said you have a master's in, and then history.
00;07;58;03 - 00;08;09;25
Nicholas Shrum
Do you have your PhD in? So maybe you could actually start there. I'm just curious, kind of what was that experience like at Yale, trying to do these two different things, or were they different at all.
00;08;09;28 - 00;08;39;01
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
At the time? They were very different. In part because, there there weren't there wasn't an American religious historian at Yale, I mean, Sidney Ostrom, who was sort of the grand the granddaddy of, of American religious histories was ill and actually passed away the year after I arrived. And, other than that, at Yale, it tended to be a pretty, a department that was the religious studies department.
00;08;39;02 - 00;09;11;17
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I'm saying it was a department that was focused on in kind of classical Protestant ways of thinking about religion. So there were theologians, there were ethicists. There were also other religious traditions represented. But it wasn't the kind of, sort of full on study of the American scene that I needed or wanted. And so I discovered, you know, someone suggested, well, why don't you take some course there are some good people in the history department, and I never wanted to study history.
00;09;11;17 - 00;09;38;19
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I always thought history was sort of boring. And you study dates and memorize things, but, I ended up studying with, Edmund Morgan and sort of study of Puritanism. And then with, the person who became my dissertation advisor, David Brion Davis and David Davis studied, slavery and anti-slavery. That was sort of, and more broadly 19th century things.
00;09;38;21 - 00;10;11;08
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
But he also studied, anti Mormonism. He had written one of the first pieces in the early 60s on, sort of, at the anti-Mormon sort of sentiment of the 19th century. And what fascinated me about it was that it wasn't the kind of history I expect. It wasn't the memorizing names and dates. It was really kind of grappling with moral questions about why is it that people turn against other, you know, of other religious traditions, other ways of life?
00;10;11;10 - 00;10;32;26
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And I really liked his approach, and he was very open to looking at religion, even though, that was not sort of his main area. He knew, you know, a whole lot about it. And so it made more sense for me to, to do more work in history. And I realized I need the more I studied, the more I knew I needed to know about, sort of American, the American past.
00;10;32;26 - 00;10;57;06
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So I ended up transferring into the history department. But in some ways, I think I, you know, I, I would say that, there's probably in religious studies, there's probably more theoretical, sort of interest generally in theories about what religion is and what religion does. And I'm very interested in those questions, but I'm also someone who's very much grounded in facts.
00;10;57;06 - 00;11;08;01
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And I do what I may not want to memorize all the dates, but I certainly want to understand the fullness of of human experience at various points in time. Does that explain.
00;11;08;03 - 00;11;08;21
Nicholas Shrum
Yeah.
00;11;08;23 - 00;11;09;26
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
To you what you are?
00;11;09;29 - 00;11;34;06
Nicholas Shrum
Yeah, and I'd love to. I mean, later at talking about the you've a mormon studies program and it's affiliation with the UVA religious studies department. Maybe we can talk a little bit more about what that looks like today and kind of your thoughts on on that relationship. But before we get there, how did you, I mean, so you talked about how Professor Davis had written about anti Mormonism in the 19th century.
00;11;34;08 - 00;11;38;25
Nicholas Shrum
How else did you come to encounter the study of Mormonism?
00;11;38;28 - 00;12;05;19
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Well, I first, really one of my first encounters was with Jan Ships, who, you know, published her book on Mormonism, and I think it was 1985. And David Brion Davis loved that book. And we talked we had a whole, forum on the book and talked a lot about it. I think for a historian, I think, again, it was it was sort of the religious studies history difference.
00;12;05;19 - 00;12;31;04
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
He was someone that was really intrigued by taking a looking at a religion as a system, as a, as a religious system, and what that meant in terms of sort of theories of religion and the way that Gen ships traced that out, I think for him was kind of novel and, and interesting. So, so I got to know Jan, Jan several times over the years would say, you really ought to study Mormons.
00;12;31;07 - 00;13;07;21
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And I, you know, I was busy doing other things at the time and, not studying Mormons, but, I was also at the University of North Carolina, where I, I didn't think Western. There was a lot of call for Western history that said, gee, I think Jan arranged this Gilder, who was then teaching at BYU and at BYU, was the president of the Mormon History Association in 1999 and asked me to give, the lecture or the, the, the Smith Pettit lecture to, to the Mormon History Association that year.
00;13;07;23 - 00;13;30;14
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And I realized that I said yes. I thought, okay, this will give me a chance to down, up, up on the Mormons. And as part of that, the, as part of this, this, giving this lecture, they flew me out to Utah for a week. So I got to work in the church archives. So it was very generous and very smart because then I really immersed myself in documents.
00;13;30;14 - 00;13;57;07
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I also spent time with Jill. She graciously hosted me, and I talked to her class, a class of hers at BYU, and so had a little more immersive experience in Utah life. Generally speaking. And as a result, I realized, oh my goodness, I really don't know much. And to learn about Mormonism before I have to give this lecture in a year, I should teach a course.
00;13;57;07 - 00;14;16;12
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Because for me, the best way to learn about anything is to teach about it. So I decided, to teach a course on Mormonism. So I reached out to Jan. I said, Jan, you know, I'm, I'm teaching this course. I'm Mormonism. Can you tell me how you teach your course and Mormonism? And she said, I've never taught a course something like this before.
00;14;16;15 - 00;14;40;27
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So she I whether I think it was through her other teaching, you know, obligations or whatever, she just never been able to do that. So she wasn't any help. And I, I kept asking around and it turned out no one outside of BYU that I could find was teaching courses on the Mormon tradition. So I, you know, it was, learning experience from the ground up.
00;14;40;27 - 00;15;16;13
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And I was really, you know, it was helpful for me to have, students who, graduate students coming to, to work with me at UMC who'd wanted to do work on the West, but who also had an interest in Mormonism. So, people like Reed Nielson, who is now at BYU, Stan Thayne, Quincy Newell and John Charles Duffy were all students of mine and helped me, especially in the early days.
00;15;16;15 - 00;15;38;08
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Helped me to, bring in lots of practitioners. We call them in religious studies, but believers, church members to talk about what what their tradition meant to them and what it was like. And we did a lot of reading. They set me up with all kinds of readings. I said, I should also mention some people that I graduate students.
00;15;38;08 - 00;15;57;03
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I didn't work with, but who happened to be in my department at the time. Frank Judge, who now teaches at BYU, was a wonderful resource for me and told me what what to read in the Book of Mormon or what to have my students read. So, there are lots of ways in which I used sort of experiential learning.
00;15;57;03 - 00;16;19;20
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I sent students out to go to sacrament meetings. I brought in, a faculty member, Richard Rest, at Unk. He's from the English department, and he had been a bishop or maybe at the time he was a bishop. So, you know, in the seminar at the head of the institute, you know, on campus, came to talk.
00;16;19;20 - 00;16;45;13
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And so it was it was, you know, I gathered, I gathered things so that I could learn myself, but it was also the best teaching experience I'd ever had. And I started teaching this course every year, and got, you know, more and more interested in, doing research. So it led me to do more research and writing, and I ended up writing some articles, you know, mostly about missionaries, Mormon missionaries.
00;16;45;13 - 00;17;12;10
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Now, the West and the Pacific world and questions of race. So, eventually led me, I thought, maybe naively at the time, I need an overview. But, you know, it was this is prior to Matt Bowman and Ben Park writing their wonderful books that were overviews of the tradition. So there was no overview like that. And so I said, I can I know I can do this, I can write an overview.
00;17;12;12 - 00;17;39;21
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Well, it turned into, as time went on, more of a global, a global, history of the tradition. And so it's turned into an international adventure in the last decade or so, taking me to Shanghai, Chile, New Zealand, England and Ghana, among other places, to try to understand, what Mormonism looks like in all around the world.
00;17;39;23 - 00;17;44;01
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
That's a very long winded way to answer your question. I know.
00;17;44;04 - 00;18;10;13
Nicholas Shrum
No, I, we I appreciate it and I'm sure listeners will as well. For those that missed the Joseph Smith Annual lecture, which is a lecture that the UVA mormon studies program hosts every year, Laurie gave that lecture last year, and it's available on YouTube. And, with the The Scholars and Saints podcast and audio version of that, you can listen to some of Laurie's research, especially in Ghana.
00;18;10;15 - 00;18;36;18
Nicholas Shrum
And kind of the Mormon experience there and, contemporarily, but also historically. So encourage listeners to listen to that. I want to transition to how you think about the importance of, given this history in this experience that you have, especially with teaching it and interacting with graduate students, interacting with members of the Mormon community in the areas in which you were teaching and especially North Carolina.
00;18;36;21 - 00;18;56;09
Nicholas Shrum
What, how how should we understand Mormon studies? As an enterprise, maybe not as a field or as a discipline that that gets kind of nuanced, for academics. But as, as far as, like engaging in Mormon space, what does that do, for you and for for the community?
00;18;56;11 - 00;19;24;21
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I am I think, one of the things it does is, it attempts to sort of combat and as a, as a educator, this is where my main goal to combat the lack of information and, sort of fact based thinking about Mormon traditions, there are still so many stereotypes about Mormons out there. Every year when I start my class, I ask students, just name them.
00;19;24;21 - 00;19;47;15
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Name your stereotypes. What are the stereotypes? Polygamy is always the first one, and there are always students that come into that class that think that all Mormons still practice polygamy. So, you know, for many people, the only book that they've ever read about, Mormons is under the banner of Heaven. So that's their view of what the whole tradition is about.
00;19;47;18 - 00;20;25;06
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Or they've watched now, now with, the rise of reality TV, they've watched The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and think that these depictions reflect this tradition as a whole. So that's one of the things I tried, you know, just to get them, to debunk some of the, not I mean, there are there's some truth to that thing is there's a germ of truth in a historical truth and, and, a lot of that, but to try to get them to understand sort of how things have changed over time and what sort of nuances of, the tradition.
00;20;25;08 - 00;20;56;08
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
There's also, I think, even more than that, a stereotype that there is only one kind of Mormonism rather than multiple traditions. And that's why, even though The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, discourages the use of the term Mormon right now, we continue to use it because we are talking about a group of religious traditions or, rather than sort of I mean, it's it's a history of multiple traditions, kind of like Protestantism.
00;20;56;08 - 00;21;26;27
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
There is no Protestant church, right? Just as there is no one Mormon church, although, I mean, that's again, if you're a believer, you have a different opinion about that. From the scholarly perspective, there is no one tradition. There are multiple traditions that have come out of, sort of this restoration movement. And just like Protestantism, you want to have students understand that variety and the differences among them and how they occurred and why they occurred.
00;21;26;29 - 00;21;53;08
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
The other stereotype, though, is that all believers think alike, and most of my students, see it that way. They don't, they don't they don't think that that, people that believe in sort of Mormon faith, they don't think and they do exactly what the prophet says. That's right. They're the shorthand version. Or they believe that most Mormons are still polygamists, and women wear prairie dresses and are completely submissive.
00;21;53;10 - 00;22;13;16
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So to bring in to, you know, to to give them a fuller picture to point out, and not only for me to say, but actually for them to talk to people, to bring in panels of women who are believers who might differ somewhat in their opinions, who come to different conclusions, who have different ways of expressing their faith.
00;22;13;16 - 00;22;37;14
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
It gets them to see that this is not just for, for, people who are automatons, which, I mean, it's it seems odd that that's still a stereotype, but it it very much is so that's why I think it's so important to sort of break through some of those very basic notions that people have in their heads.
00;22;37;17 - 00;23;02;27
Nicholas Shrum
Yeah. And it's one that I feel like this goal that you have and, and something that, you know, the academic study of Mormonism, especially with undergraduates, it does such a good job of expanding religious, literacy and something that the department and Eva, it has as a goal some of the largest classes at UVA are in Buddhism, Islam, Christian ethics.
00;23;02;29 - 00;23;29;12
Nicholas Shrum
And then of course, with, the establishment of the Bushman Chair in 2013, since then there have been courses on Mormonism every year. And those are like you're saying, those are some of the ones that you've offered. Do you have any reflections on your experience so far at UVA about how the how the teaching of Mormonism as a, as a, as a subject of academic study, how is that how has that gone?
00;23;29;15 - 00;23;31;20
Nicholas Shrum
What have you gathered from that?
00;23;31;22 - 00;23;59;20
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I love UVA, I love being here. I mean, admittedly, it's only been a year. I'm sure there are things I could say that I are not going as well, but I. I can't think of them. I love being back in a public university. For me, public education is an opportunity to teach a very wide cross-section of students, many of them from small towns where they haven't interacted with many Mormons or even people of many other faiths.
00;23;59;22 - 00;24;28;13
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So, you know, they're they're the ones who sort of these stereotypes get embedded in particular ways, but they're also open, you know, remarkably open to learning and thinking in different ways. So that's for the undergraduates. That's, that's the, the, the joy of being in a public institution, and sending them off, you know, to sacrament meeting, getting them to know LDS community members and other folks.
00;24;28;15 - 00;24;52;22
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I think it helps to promote independent thinking and interaction with new kinds of approaches to history. That's certainly also the case for graduate students who, coming into a religious studies department. And this perhaps is the difference from a history program, although we have a great history program, too, and our students usually take courses in both, both places.
00;24;52;25 - 00;25;19;19
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
It, you know, it's sort of an old adage in religious studies that he who knows one knows none. And by that I mean that it is impossible to really understand any tradition fully unless, you know, unless you can compare it to other traditions, because you don't see the full contours of it, and you can't see what is a given, what is what is distinctive.
00;25;19;21 - 00;25;46;04
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So we train students, you know, when students come here, they don't just get, sort of a background in, Mormonism. You can't come here and just study Mormonism. Both. I think for practical purposes, if you want to get a PhD and go on and teach, you need to be, you know, you need to do more because most schools do not just have people, you know, unlike me, there aren't chairs of Mormon studies floating around all over the country.
00;25;46;06 - 00;26;15;10
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So, it's really important to get a much broader kind of training, but I can I'll talk more specifically about the training later. But just back to your point about UVA, I want to say a few other things about what I value about this place in particular. You know, it's I mean, you can kind of joke that the legacy of Thomas Jefferson, there's a long shadow to Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville North in Charlottesville, Virginia.
00;26;15;13 - 00;26;44;11
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And it's true. But there are some really good reasons for that. One of which, is that there is a legacy here of religious freedom that people take very seriously. And of the importance of religious pluralism. So aside from students having to understand, you know, sort of something about other traditions, to get them to see the full extent of what that freedom entails, so that freedom is not it's not, easy.
00;26;44;18 - 00;27;13;00
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
It's and it's not, it's, it's an obligation we have to uphold, not just, sort of a free ticket to express ourselves in whatever ways we want. And no one knows this better than Mormons, and no one understands that the fine line that exists between religious oppression and religious freedom better than, you know, those who study Mormon history.
00;27;13;00 - 00;27;49;13
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So it's a really, really important lesson in how to think about religious freedom more generally. Thomas Jefferson also, I think in other ways provides a really good model. He himself, that had had a copy of the Koran and read the Koran and although he did not believe in the Koran in any religious sense, he thought it was really important to be educated about the tradition and to advocate for Muslims being considered part of the citizenry of this country.
00;27;49;13 - 00;28;17;08
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Again, that's a focus on religious freedom, that that entails a certain kind of obligation to education and to understanding and to outreach. So there's there are just lots of ways in which that's promoted at UVA. In other ways. I'm not the only one here. There's an institute for democracy. There's all kinds of places where that happens. And I think it's a message that students can imbibe if they're open to hearing about it.
00;28;17;10 - 00;28;45;09
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
The last thing I would say about UVA, and then I'll get off my my advertising for a minute, there have been some groundbreaking historians, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, that have come out of public universities generally. So I've been lucky enough to be at sort of two of those premier institutions. Unk at in, Chapel Hill, where Leonard Arrington was a student.
00;28;45;11 - 00;29;13;23
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And Lester Bush here at UVA, Lester Bush got his undergraduate and his medical degrees here. And right now, in fact, we're in the planning stages of how to honor Lester Bush's legacy, here as part of UVA, where he was both, you know, as I said, both, undergrad and grad student, but both, you know, Leonard Arrington and Lester Bush, I think, push the boundaries of historical work in their in the field.
00;29;13;25 - 00;29;41;17
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And it seems fitting to celebrate and continue those legacies at places like UVA, where we can honor it. We can hold it up as an example of the kind of independent thinking, and sometimes critical research that needs to go on both within and outside of traditions. So it's a way to speak both to communities internally, but also to move in broader, circles.
00;29;41;19 - 00;30;10;04
Nicholas Shrum
Thank you for that. That's that's been my experience as well. I've been impressed since I've come to UVA. How often? Conversations that that have to do with religious freedom, religious literacy, civics and just basic good citizenry, you know, come, come together in various forums. And so to me, it's just I love seeing how natural it is in many environments to see.
00;30;10;06 - 00;30;31;15
Nicholas Shrum
Yeah, these various institutes on democracy. And when we have, the, Joseph Smith lecture feature senators and other public figures that come in, they can speak to Mormonism, but they speak to bigger things that Mormonism has always been a part of, especially in the United States. I think one of your goals is to push that beyond the United States in many ways.
00;30;31;15 - 00;30;53;00
Nicholas Shrum
And we can talk about that. But it's it is I, I for people that aren't on the East Coast that might be listening or learning about this program in Utah in the quote unquote, Mormon corridor, right where we think of these hubs of studying Mormonism and Mormon history at BYU and, at the University of Utah in Utah State.
00;30;53;03 - 00;31;17;18
Nicholas Shrum
UVA is a really good place that provides a lot of different kind of angles and opportunities to rub shoulders with other faith traditions and other, initiatives in public education that I think, both benefits Mormonism itself. But then the study of Mormonism really benefits these other, goals. The the humanities, education and the liberal arts education can provide.
00;31;17;18 - 00;31;20;20
Nicholas Shrum
So thank you. Thank you for thinking about that with me.
00;31;20;22 - 00;31;22;28
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Sure.
00;31;23;00 - 00;31;48;19
Nicholas Shrum
For the next part of the conversation, I'd love to have you discuss some of your goals. The the previous chair, Kathleen Flake, that held the the chair from 2013 and until 2024, did a lot of really remarkable things. And I think in the future we need to have, a good conversation, as well on the podcast to talk about what those kinds of things were to, to reflect on that.
00;31;48;19 - 00;31;58;08
Nicholas Shrum
But you bring your own goals and vision for UVA, mormon studies. So can you introduce us to kind of what what those look like for you?
00;31;58;10 - 00;32;25;04
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Sure. You know, part of part of my goal is to continue some of the great things that Kathleen had started. So I just to say that I don't I don't see myself as much embarking on a completely new path as adding to, you know, as being additive, adding to the kinds of, richness that she, so carefully and importantly, started here.
00;32;25;06 - 00;32;54;06
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So I, I would, I mean that the, the easy way that I remember this in my own thinking is to boil this down to the three C's. Conversation, community and collections. So, one of our goals is to foster conversations with, Mormon community, LDS and other Mormon communities around the area and nationally. So I see you've as a natural gathering place.
00;32;54;06 - 00;33;32;03
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
We have the resources to gather people and to exchange ideas, and educate one another in, in certain regards. There are also conversations, I think, within academic circles that we, promote through things like the Joseph Smith lecture. So, for example, this October 24th, Jana Reese is going to be coming and talking about her research on, sort of membership and, and ways of understanding affiliation within the LDS faith, looking at, groups she calls the liminal Mormons.
00;33;32;06 - 00;34;11;10
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And there was just a actually an article in the Salt Lake Tribune. Yesterday, I think about again about trying to gather the new, newer ways that people are defining affiliation, religious affiliation. So Jana will give a lecture on that Friday night, the 24th, and then on the morning of the 25th, she will be in conversation with Rosemarie Events, who is a scholar of communication studies from Oklahoma State, just came out with a book recently called Mediated Mormons, again, about questions of Mormon identity and the different ways that people understand and interpret and experience Mormon identity.
00;34;11;12 - 00;34;35;04
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
In sort of this new, new century. And they'll also be talking to Matt Headroom, who is my colleague here in religious studies who, is a scholar of American religion, not of of Mormonism specifically. But Matt teaches one of our biggest courses in the department called spiritual but not religious. And Nicholas, I think, use to for that course.
00;34;35;06 - 00;35;07;05
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So you're the expert on it. But, you know, it's it's popular in part because that definition has taken on such interesting significance, especially in the last, I would say, 20 years. More and more students identified themselves as spiritual but not religious. What does that mean? You know, and how are we to understand the relationship that people are, sort of negotiating with religious religious institutions and communities that they're a part of or maybe not a part of?
00;35;07;05 - 00;35;41;18
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Maybe I don't want to be a part of them. So the three of them will have a conversation, I think, I'm hoping will be a really exciting way to to think about, to think together about, you know, how we define ourselves. Not just Mormons, but but also and that's sort of the case study that will be dealing with, we also are planning a lunch series, bringing in people a couple times a semester so we can gather both students from across UVA, but also members of the wider community, both church members and nonmembers.
00;35;41;20 - 00;36;13;07
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
To come to hear scholars talk about their work and their research. We have library fellowships. So that's another way to promote conversation. And when when our library fellows come here, I'm hoping at least a couple of them will be talking to my class and getting involved, in that way as well. So there are all kinds of ways in which those scholarly meetings are sort of at the, at the center of what we're about in the University.
00;36;13;09 - 00;36;52;26
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I also, I'm excited about reaching out to folks down at, Southern Virginia University SVU, which is not far away from here. And people up in north, the Northern Virginia region. I was just up, up in Maryland, a couple of weeks ago in fact, talking to groups of folks there, and try to introduce them to our program, to interest them in our program and to serve as a resource both for their students at SVU, who I think, you know, could see could see what we offer here, the library, other things as a resource for them.
00;36;52;29 - 00;37;26;27
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
But also the conversations that we can we can have together. So that's sort of the community. That's the so the focus on community, collections. Then, of course, we have the library collections. And in addition to Greg Prince, who gave us by far the largest and inaugural collection of resources, some 11,000 documents and pieces that are now in our archival, collection here, the Mormon Studies Collection.
00;37;26;29 - 00;37;55;13
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
We also have another a few other exciting additions to our Mormon Studies collection. More recently, one from the Community of Christ who has donated about 500 books, to our collection so that we're covering that of another restoration tradition there. And, Nicholas, you could talk more about this than I can the hot arts. Collection, from your grandfather.
00;37;55;15 - 00;38;18;20
Nicholas Shrum
Yeah. Just to kind of, supplement. For those that aren't familiar with the Greg Prince collection, I hope you'll come get familiar with it. This is a call to scholars across the country. Come research in UVA Special Collections. But when you get there, you'll find that it's, it's a very broad and diverse set of sources and documents that tackle a whole bunch of different issues and topics.
00;38;18;20 - 00;38;40;10
Nicholas Shrum
But, recently, my family, has, agreed to donate a number of items from my grandfather's collection who was just kind of this normal, everyday latter day Saint guy from Salt Lake City. But, you know, to show what a lived religion experience was like for a latter day Saint during the 20th century. So excited to have that come to UVA to.
00;38;40;12 - 00;39;05;27
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Yeah, we're thrilled to be getting that. And, you know, I've had other people reach out to me, and, about donations and things and I'm, I'm open to that. Not that I can accept everything. And we actually have quite, quite a robust collection of, of Mormon studies books in the library to begin with. I'm always pleasantly surprised by the things I find in there.
00;39;05;29 - 00;39;43;28
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
But both, the Prince collection and now the white House collections are really, in very different ways. So interesting dives into sort of a cross section for, for the Prince collection. I'm always excited by what I find. There it is. He managed to collect a wide variety of things about race. And the LDS church about, the international movement in certain parts of the world about women's experiences, and the high fields collection, although I've only seen glimpses of it so far because we're still in the process of of collecting it.
00;39;44;00 - 00;40;00;12
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
He was amazing at eye documenting, like, every day of his life, but but within the textures of church life, because he was so important and so important part of a ward. And what ward was it again? Nicholas?
00;40;00;15 - 00;40;03;07
Nicholas Shrum
The 20th ward in downtown Salt Lake City.
00;40;03;09 - 00;40;43;12
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Yeah. Right. Downtown. So this is right in the heart of things. He gives you just a day by day glimpse of what life was like in that ward. So it's really, really exciting. So, yeah, all these ways in which I think we can, we can be a resource was we have a mormon Studies Council here that I work with, a group of people, some of whom are our academics, associated with UVA, but not not all of them who are really helping me to kind of think through paths forward, how to raise money to continue, the programing we have available.
00;40;43;14 - 00;41;09;01
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And finally, I should mention the classes and that's, I guess the other c there forces, the classes that I offer at UVA and I'm thinking about what what else to expand to. I mean, there's one class on Mormonism right now. And I'm kind of waiting to see where the demand is, but I and my students at the end of that course in the spring said, why aren't there more classes on Mormonism at UVA?
00;41;09;01 - 00;41;21;15
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So I'm I'm looking for ways I, I also include it in other courses I teach, but to have another course that just deals with Mormon traditions would be really exciting. So I'm working on that.
00;41;21;17 - 00;41;49;06
Nicholas Shrum
Well, I like these three C's and they kind of blend into each other in fun ways. But, I think that there's a really helpful encapsulation of kind of what, what this program means and what it looks like, from day to day, week to week, and from semester to semester. Can you talk a little bit about future initiatives that you would like to see, come to UVA, things that, are in the works or are or otherwise?
00;41;49;09 - 00;42;11;05
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Yeah, yeah. Well, some of them, you know, revolve around my own research interests or the things that I have the most expertise in, which I think is often the way these things develop. I know, you know, Kathleen, like being a, scholar of religion and law, had wonderful interfaces with the law school and the Institute for democracy.
00;42;11;07 - 00;42;41;08
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I'm, my interests. Want I want to continue those. But I also really want, to do more and Mormon women's history. I have, previously collaborated with a number of prominent, historians of women, Melissa, in a way, but but both the late Melissa know and Kate Holbrook, unfortunately, we lost both of them in the last few years.
00;42;41;11 - 00;43;11;04
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Melissa and I, when she was in New Zealand teaching in New Zealand in 28, 17, 2017, she and I put on a conference there on Mormonism in the Pacific world, and she's interested in, in women and supporting women's work, but also in global Mormonism. So that's sort of my interest. Brought me there to, participate with her in this conference and to organize it.
00;43;11;06 - 00;43;45;22
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And we are now, coming out with, an edited collection soon on Mormonism in Asia. So look for that next year to be out from the University of Illinois Press. The other person that I've collaborated quite a bit with was Kate Holbrook. She and I, through the Maxwell Institute at BYU. She, she and I, spearheaded, a four year Mormon Women's history initiative where we invited 12 scholars of Mormon women's history to meet here on a yearly basis.
00;43;45;24 - 00;44;22;21
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Some of us have kept meeting since then, but, in order to, support women, first of all, to support women, doing history, but also to think expansively and, look at new directions in studying Mormon women's history. So right now, the next thing and I can't say too much about it yet because it's still in its, it's, infantile stages is I'm working on a project with Barbara Jones Brown at Signature Books and Marty Bradley at the Smith Pettit Foundation to gather and support scholars of Mormon women's history.
00;44;22;24 - 00;44;47;25
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Again, both members and nonmembers. This is not limited in any way, since the idea it really is outreach beyond the church based community. So stay tuned for more on on what's what will be forthcoming. As we as we firm that up. So women's history is one piece. The other piece is the global Mormon studies. And again, this ties into my work with Melissa, but also my own research, focus.
00;44;47;25 - 00;45;17;08
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And I've already talked a little bit about where that research has taken me. But there is so much more to be discovered. It's hard to it's hard to know where to stop researching because the field is so rich. And now with, the the rise of interest in part, I think, spearheaded by by Melissa when she was alive, this the interest in global Mormon studies has become a really vital area.
00;45;17;08 - 00;45;52;08
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
And gathering researchers from other parts of the world, you know, people focused on Mormon experiences, you know, in places where we typically haven't, sort of done a lot of research is very important to me. So the Mormonism in Asia book is one piece of that. But there's lots more to be done in that regard. So those are the exciting, I think the the global piece and the piece on women's history, I think are, two areas where I'm going to focus.
00;45;52;08 - 00;46;37;17
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
The other area I should also mention, is the Lester Bush initiative here. And again, that that moves us towards, I think, ways to think about, the Mormon tradition that include the institutional dimensions of the tradition but are not limited to it. So looking at lived experience, looking at, the experiences of people who are often sort of not considered, have not been considered as fully, it's, you know, we've moved in some ways in the field of religious studies generally, but I hope in, in Mormon studies as well, from a focus on institutional history, from, you know, kind of, prophet to prophet to prophet, kind of like the Catholic
00;46;37;17 - 00;47;07;17
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Church goes from pope to pope to power, to a study of, ordinary folks of everyday life, and how it how those things relate to institutional structures but are not necessarily limited or contained by them. So, the Lester Bush, sort of initiative. Again, stay tuned for more more coming up on that. I'm, we're just getting started on formulating what that will look like.
00;47;07;19 - 00;47;34;05
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
We'll try to honor his legacy in that regard. And it's a legacy that I think, honestly, is not has not always been, welcomed in some ways. But as a sort of scholar, you know, you want to promote independent, but respectful, and careful awareness about as much as many facets of a tradition as you can.
00;47;34;08 - 00;48;10;22
Nicholas Shrum
I appreciate those thoughts. And these are wonderful initiatives that I think will, be welcomed at UVA. And I anticipate there will be a lot of excitement about them. So thank you for having those up, and we're excited to see those. And hopefully we can bring some of these conversations that happen in Charlottesville. You know, through the UVA, mormon studies, social media and through the podcasts and the YouTube channel that there are ways that we can which share some of the things that are happening all the way on the East Coast with, with others, across the United States and around the world that are interested in the Mormon studies.
00;48;10;25 - 00;48;35;19
Nicholas Shrum
To conclude our conversation, I'd love to have your thoughts on that. We kind of alluded to it at the beginning and and throughout a little bit, but this relationship between Mormon studies and religious studies, as well as kind of the the relationship between an institution like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, the Community of Christ and other Mormon, faith traditions.
00;48;35;21 - 00;49;00;27
Nicholas Shrum
What what is this, this relationship, as you see it, between the academic study of religion and then something like a contemporary religious community, like Mormonism. You know, how do you, how do you approach that as somebody that is in, you know, in charge of heading up these initiatives? And what what would you like people to know about that?
00;49;00;29 - 00;49;30;13
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Let me tell me if this gets at your question, because I'm again, I might have to rephrase it for me in a minute, but, I think, again, seeing this sort of plurality of these traditions is and seeing the ways that, you know, religion's the whole category of religion is something that scholars invented, you know, no one, no one ever, started out calling themselves a Protestant.
00;49;30;18 - 00;49;49;14
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
You know, they did. They were protesters, I guess, but that these are labels that we have sort of attached to kind of make sense of things. It's kind of like in biology when we attach, you know, kingdom of phylum, stripped all the way down to family, genus species. Right. We attach these categories and then you discover,
00;49;49;17 - 00;50;15;25
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
There are things that don't quite fit into those categories, and those categories are really just helpful. What the fancy term for this, I guess theoretically, is heuristic categories, right? They, they allow us to to kind of examine something I have like a working, definition of it but don't contain it completely. There are, there are creatures that we're still finding that are, you know, are belong there.
00;50;15;28 - 00;50;43;12
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
You're not sure whether which species they're a part of, for example, or they seem to cross these categories. Similarly with religion, it's a category that we've come up with to try to talk about a phenomenon. Right. But as, as, you know, from your studies, Nicholas, and, I tried to, you know, teach students, we don't want those categories to sort of be the sole defining factor.
00;50;43;12 - 00;51;15;17
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
So, it's it would be one thing, I think, to just define Mormonism by what the church defines as more so, people who are Mormons are members of a specific church. That's a very static way of understanding the way faith works in people's lives. First of all, because there are these people that don't quite fall into the categories, what do you do with someone who, okay, they don't go to church, right now, but they were faithful members for 20 years.
00;51;15;17 - 00;51;46;15
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Are they? Do you not study them? Do you leave them out? Right. So those are all questions, I think that, are important for scholars to ask. And as a has for a historian to ask in particular, as we sort of look at the religious, what we might call religious experiences and how they interact with these institutions that sometimes define what they're doing, and some people fit the categories really well and other people don't.
00;51;46;18 - 00;51;56;18
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
What does that tell us about the tradition itself, if that makes sense? Does that does that answer your question?
00;51;56;21 - 00;52;27;29
Nicholas Shrum
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think for those that aren't in academia, right, they might see, oh, you know, at this prominent university, University of Virginia, there's a mormon studies program and a chair. And I think it's just helpful for people to understand kind of what that relationship is between something like an endowed professorship and this programing that happens at this university with something like an institution and maybe a short way of putting this, is at the beginning of this podcast.
00;52;28;02 - 00;52;52;25
Nicholas Shrum
Every episode I have a disclosure that we do not speak on behalf of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints or any other Mormon institution, that this is not entirely separate, but that this is I think it's important that, there's a recognition of the position of the program in relationship to a faith community. It doesn't speak on behalf of it, but it's totally engaged with it.
00;52;52;27 - 00;53;00;23
Nicholas Shrum
And I think that that's a really productive thing. But, you know, maybe that's not initially what people think.
00;53;00;25 - 00;53;32;06
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Yeah. And admittedly, I think that's all really well put. Admittedly, I think it can, for, for believers, for for church members, it can, on the one hand, seem threatening at first. Because it does question things which maybe people don't feel like ought to be questioned. But I think to do so in a respectful way shows, I think, the differences in the kinds of questions we're asking here.
00;53;32;06 - 00;53;56;12
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
We're not, you know, our goal in the program is not, to convert anyone. It's not to convince them of the truth or, or falsehood of any particular beliefs. Now, for some people, that's already threatening, I get it, but that already feels like, oh, just a relic. You're just a relativist and you're, you know, there's no truth. No, that's not what I'm saying at all.
00;53;56;14 - 00;54;23;03
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Our goal is to better understand through the fuller dimensions of religious experience and to be really honest and to talk about some of the things that are difficult to talk about in other settings sometimes. So in institutional settings, there are ways in which, for all you know, for all the good that can happen there, the goals are different.
00;54;23;05 - 00;54;55;06
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
The goals of being there are just different ones. And so I think it's really important. It's important for graduate students that that want to apply here to, to understand that that we're I don't I'm not a theologian. I'm not here to do constructive ethics or theology in, in Mormonism. I am a historian. And, that to me is exciting and vibrant and can tell us a lot about, you know, better ways to get along with other people in the world.
00;54;55;06 - 00;55;20;19
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
But, it's a different it's just a different kind of, of, trajectory, I think, than you would get in a faith promoting situation. And, you know, it's, it's I'm learning my way through this, too. I mean, there are, I think I'm the first non-Mormon to have a chair of Mormon studies, and that puts me in a in an interesting place.
00;55;20;22 - 00;55;57;23
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Because obviously, the the people contributing to the program are, by and large, our church members, you know, are people who love this this church and love, love the, the, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in particular, and really want to see right done by it, as do I. But the goal is different here. And so to keep that in mind and to kind of stay within the framework of, a scholarly discussion of these things, is a different kind of enterprise, an exciting one, but a different one.
00;55;57;26 - 00;56;27;00
Nicholas Shrum
Really. Thank you for those thoughts. I think it's really helpful, for, for understanding the place of and and what makes you the Mormon studies as a program so special? At the, at this university, again, bringing it back to what you were saying about, the University of Virginia and Thomas Jefferson. Right. And this, this idea of and, you know, being an advocate, you can still be an advocate for the the place of, members of a faith in a citizenry.
00;56;27;00 - 00;56;48;04
Nicholas Shrum
And that, that that can be a part of a goal of something like the Mormon studies, but that ultimately it's not about, you know, truth claims and those kinds of things. And, but I really appreciate that. To close out, I would love your thoughts on how you would appeal to the, the broader public and community about how they can be involved.
00;56;48;05 - 00;56;56;18
Nicholas Shrum
What kinds of things can they do? With the program, with, the Mormon studies community.
00;56;56;20 - 00;57;18;12
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
I would say keep an eye out for events that we have come to the Joseph Smith Lecture, come to our other, speaking events, come to the Lunch and Learn series, when when that is going. And the best way to keep abreast of those things are, from our website. We keep that up to date with news and events.
00;57;18;14 - 00;57;38;02
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
The other way is, you know, if you are a scholar of some sort, come, you know, use the special collections. There are some wonderful librarians there. That's more for the nerdy historian people for whom you're not going to, you know, not going to do your own genealogy there. I will tell you, I've had people ask me, well, can I come, you know, can you tell me about my family history?
00;57;38;05 - 00;58;04;19
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
That's in another place. But but we can tell you a lot about Mormon studies and Mormon history. So make use of it as you can, and donate to help us with our programing. We are not we don't have a big endowment right now. I mean, the the, the chair is an endowed position. I'm very fortunate in that regard.
00;58;04;21 - 00;58;34;19
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
But we are looking for sort of new ways to, help this program really flourish at UVA and become, a really integral part of the community. And I know it can happen. It's, but we're looking we're looking for help to make that happen. So there are ways through our website you can donate, to the cause and trust that, it will be used, I think, to further the kinds of educational goals we've been talking about.
00;58;34;21 - 00;58;53;13
Nicholas Shrum
Yeah, there are a lot of a lot of ways to be involved, and especially in that last point. And we'll include that in the show notes to this episode, kind of the links to places that you can donate, but also you can be plugged in to the things that are going on. It is a vibrant community. We would like it to, to grow, we would like it to be able to reach more people.
00;58;53;13 - 00;59;03;20
Nicholas Shrum
And the more, interaction between the community and other scholars, the more robust, this program can become. So thank you. So much, Larry, for being.
00;59;03;21 - 00;59;26;26
Laurie Maffly-Kipp
Oh, you're welcome. I feel like this has been an hour long infomercial for for UVA mormon studies, but I am a big believer and, Nicholas, if you, if, you know, among your other virtues, you are one of, the the budding products of this institution and, are doing proud by us. So thank you for all your work with the podcast.
00;59;26;29 - 00;59;45;25
Nicholas Shrum
Oh, of course. And then thank you so much for all your work and for being, here to talk about it. And we'll look forward to these upcoming events, especially the Joseph Smith Lecture in a couple of weeks. And stay tuned for more announcements and we will see you all next time. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Scholars and Saints.
00;59;45;25 - 00;59;59;22
Nicholas Shrum
Please be sure to come back to hear more conversation soon. A special thank you to Harrison Stuart for production, editing, and to Ben Arrington for providing music for this episode. To hear more, visit Mormon guitar.com. Thank you for listening.