Quick Facts
Biography
Benjamin E. Park is an American historian concentrating on early American political, religious, and intellectual history; history of gender; religious studies; slavery and anti-slavery; and Atlantic history. Park is assistant professor at Sam Houston State University.
Park is a member of the executive committee of the Mormon History Association (2017– ), editor the Mormon Studies [book] Series for Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (2016– ), associate editor of Mormon Studies Review (2013– ), member of the editorial board of the Journal of Mormon History (2012–2015), a founder and editor of The Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History (2012– ), a founder and co-editor of the Patheos.com column Peculiar People (2012–2015), member of the editorial board of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (2011–2012), a founder and contributing editor at Juvenile Instructor: A Mormon History Blog (2007– ). Park has also been manuscript referees for Oxford University Press, State University of New York Press, and Brigham Young University Press, and has been journal referees for Journal of the Early Republic, Journal of Religious History, American Political Thought, Journal of Religion and Ethics, Politics, Religion, & Ideology, Eras Journal, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Journal of Mormon History, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and BYU Studies Quarterly.
Biography
Park received his bachelor's degree in both English and history from Brigham Young University in 2009. He then went on to study at the University of Edinburgh. After that he studied at the University of Cambridge completing a doctorate there in 2014. Before joining the faculty of Sam Houston State (2016), Park lectured as the University of Missouri as the inaugural postdoctoral fellow in history at the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy (2014–2016) and as a supervisor and lecturer in history at the University of Cambridge (2012–2014).
As a young Latter-day Saint, Park served as a missionary for the LDS Church in the Washington, DC area.
During 2014 a book review by Park (viz. of David F. Holland's Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America) catalyzed some controversy among the Mormon apologetics community. Within his review, Park advocated for the robustly secular framework of 19th-century historical studies within which to engage the greaterreligious studies academy with regard to Book of Mormon studies.
In 2017, Park joined twenty other Mormon studies scholars in signing a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court with regard its review of Trump Administration's travel bans. The brief draws parallels between historical U.S. government-promoted anti-Mormon sentiments and the allegedly anti-Muslim atmosphere of the proposed bans. In 2017 Park was among and ten co-authors publishing "Shoulder to the Wheel: Resources to Help Latter-day Saints Face Racism ..."
Writings
Park's publications include book reviews, academic book chapters, reference-book entries, journal articles, and general audience opinion essays.
Reviews
[Year] in Retrospect series
Book-length scholarship
(In progress):
- Transcendental Abolition: European Theology, American Thought, and Defining Democracy in the Nineteenth Century
- Democracy’s Discontents: A Story of Politics, Polygamy, and Power in Mormon Nauvoo