Reading Lessons in Black and White: Race, Literacy, and the Making of the Mormon People

Max Perry Mueller (MTS '08, PhD (Committee on the Study of Religion) '15) will discuss his new book, Race and the Making of the Mormon People (The University of North Carolina Press, 2017). Mueller, an assistant professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, argues that in American history, the category of "race" began as a literary project—taking place on the written page—before racial distinctions got read onto flesh and bone bodies. As one recent reviewer put it, "[Race and the Making of the Mormon People] tells us that race is a story that we collectively write about ourselves."