Stephen Edward Robinson was a religious scholar and apologist, who was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Leonard James Arrington was an American author, academic and the founder of the Mormon History Association. He is known as the "Dean of Mormon History" and "the Father of Mormon History" because of his many influential contributions to the field. Since 1842, he was the first non-general authority Church Historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from 1972 to 1982, and was director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History from 1982 until 1986.
Robert James Matthews was a Latter-day Saint religious educator and scholar, teaching in the departments of Ancient Scripture and Religious Education at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah.
Richard Charles Neitzel Holzapfel is a former professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University (BYU) and an author on topics related to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Western and Utah History, and the New Testament. As of 2018, Holzapfel is working in the LDS Church's Missionary Department as a senior manager.
Douglas H. Thayer was a prominent author in the "faithful realism" movement of Mormon fiction. He has been called the "Mormon Hemingway" for his straightforward style and powerful prose. Eugene England called him the "father of contemporary Mormon fiction."
George Eugene England, Jr., usually credited as Eugene England, was a Mormon writer, teacher, and scholar. He founded Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the oldest independent journal in Mormon Studies, with G. Wesley Johnson, Paul G. Salisbury, Joseph H. Jeppson, and Frances Menlove in 1966, and cofounded the Association for Mormon Letters in 1976. He is also widely known in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for his many essays about Mormon culture and thought. From 1977–1998, England taught Mormon Literature at Brigham Young University. England described the ideal modern Mormon scholar as "critical and innovative as his gifts from God require but conscious of and loyal to his own unique heritage and nurturing community and thus able to exercise those gifts without harm to others or himself."
Richard Olsen Cowan is a historian of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a former professor in the Church History Department of Brigham Young University (BYU). He was one of the longest-serving BYU faculty and the longest-serving member of the Church History Department ever.
Paul Y. Hoskisson is an American professor of Ancient scripture and former associate dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University (BYU). In 2008, he was appointed director of the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Research.
Arnold Kent Garr was the chair of the department of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University (BYU) from 2006 to 2009. He was also the lead editor of the Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History.
Boyd Jay Petersen is program coordinator for Mormon Studies at Utah Valley University (UVU) and teaches English and literature at UVU and Brigham Young University (BYU). He has also been a biographer of Hugh Nibley, a candidate for the Utah House of Representatives, and president of the Association for Mormon Letters. He was named editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought for the term 2016-2020.
The Association for Mormon Letters (AML) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 to "foster scholarly and creative work in Mormon letters and to promote fellowship among scholars and writers of Mormon literature." Other stated purposes have included promoting the "production and study of Mormon literature" and the encouragement of quality writing "by, for, and about Mormons." The broadness of this definition of LDS literature has led the AML to focus on a wide variety of work that has sometimes been neglected in the Mormon community. It publishes criticism on such writing, hosts an annual conference, and offers awards to works of fiction, poetry, essay, criticism, drama, film, and other genres. It published the literary journal Irreantum from 1999 to 2013 and currently publishes an online-only version of the journal, which began in 2018. The AML's blog, Dawning of a Brighter Day, launched in 2009. As of 2012, the association also promotes LDS literature through the use of social media. The AML has been described as an "influential proponent of Mormon literary fiction."
Benson Young Parkinson is a Latter-day Saint novelist, literary critic, and biographer. He has published two novels concerning fictional LDS missionaries, entitled The MTC: Set Apart and Into the Field, as well as a biography of S. Dilworth Young, an LDS general authority. In the mid-1990s he became involved in the Association for Mormon Letters (AML), primarily by creating an email forum for the discussion of LDS literature called AML-List, for which he was awarded the 2000 AML Award for Criticism. Parkinson then co-founded the literary journal Irreantum and served as co-editor for a year. His criticism of LDS literature has been featured in multiple publications. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University.
Christopher Everett Crowe is an American professor of English and English education at Brigham Young University (BYU) specializing in young adult literature. In addition to his academic work, Crowe also writes books for the young-adult market, including Mississippi Trial, 1955.
Carol Cornwall Madsen is an emeritus professor of history at Brigham Young University (BYU) where she was a research historian with the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History. She also served as associate director of BYU's Women's Research Institute. She has written 50 scholarly articles and several books.
Richard Holton Cracroft was an author and emeritus professor of English at Brigham Young University (BYU) where he held the title of Nan Osmond Grass Professor in English and spent time as head of BYU's English department and as dean of the College of Humanities. He directed BYU's American Studies Program (1989–1994), directed the Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature and edited the seminal A Believing People anthology, a landmark in Mormon letters. His devotion to the field is most famously summed up in his Association for Mormon Letters presidential address "Attuning the Authentic Mormon Voice: Stemming the Sophic Tide in LDS Literature" and his long-running column "Book Nook" in BYU Magazine which demonstrated the breadth of Mormon literature to a wide audience.
Grant Revon Underwood is a historian of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU). He is also the author of The Millennial World of Early Mormonism and the editor of Voyages of Faith: Explorations in Mormon Pacific History.
Alan Frank Keele is an American professor of German at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
David Lamont Paulsen (1936–2020) was a professor emeritus of philosophy at Brigham Young University (BYU). From 1994 to 1998 he held the Richard L. Evans Chair of Religious Understanding at BYU. He was an active faculty member at BYU from 1972–2011.
Mormon studies is the interdisciplinary academic study of the beliefs, practices, history and culture of individuals and denominations belonging to the Latter Day Saint movement, a religious movement associated with the Book of Mormon, though not all churches and members of the Latter Day Saint movement identify with the terms Mormon or Mormonism. Denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement include The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by far the largest, as well as the Community of Christ (CoC) and other smaller groups, include some categorized under the umbrella term Mormon fundamentalism.
Neal Elwood Lambert is an emeritus professor of English and American Studies at Brigham Young University (BYU). His most notable work was A Believing People: Literature of Latter-day Saints an anthology co-edited with Richard Cracroft.
