The American West Center at the University of Utah and its partners the Charles Redd Center for Western History at BYU, the Mormon History Association, the Tanner Humanities Center, the Tanner Center for Non-Violent Human Rights, and the Salt Lake City Public Library collectively offer a panel discussion of Ron Walker, Richard Turley, and Glen Leonard's highly-anticipated book, Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Oxford University Press, 2008).

The event will take place on September 5, 2008, at 7pm in the main auditorium at the Salt Lake City Public Library. A distinguished list of three panelists will read the book and prepare formal critiques. Richard Turley will then respond to the critiques. A discussion with the audience will follow.

The panel includes Dr. John Mack Faragher, Arthur Unobskey Professor of American History at Yale University and one of the nation’s foremost Western historians, who will discuss the book’s treatment of violence in the West; Dr. Philip Barlow, Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University, who will evaluate the book in light of its authors’ positions as LDS employees and situate it within Mormon studies and 19th century religious studies more broadly; and Dr. Donald Fixico, Regent Professor at Arizona State University, who will critique the book from the American Indian vantage and in relation to imperialism and colonialism during this era. Notably, the panel coincides with the release of the book and with ever increasing interest in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Indeed, it is fair to say that the Mountain Meadows Massacre is one of the Intermountain West's darkest hours. It represents the single most violent incident in the history of America's overland migration, most noteworthy because it involved white settlers killing white settlers who were in transit. The incident is even more firmly anchored to the Intermountain West through its relationship to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the region's prevalent religious groups. This panel will not only explore the various aspects of the massacre, but more importantly it will evaluate this scholarly attempt to understand the massacre, an attempt made more complex through the relationship of its authors to the LDS church.

The panel, then, will situate the massacre in time and firmly in the space of Intermountain West, but it will also situate Massacre at Mountain Meadows in relationship to its sponsoring institution. It thus becomes a double lens, historical and contemporary, into violence and religion in the region. Our ultimate goal is to offer a set of questions and insights from some of the nation's leading scholars that will serve to place the massacre within a deeper context of violence, imperialism, and religiosity in the U.S. West.