How do Latter-day Saints remember and celebrate their history?
An upcoming Church History Symposium will explore that question through the theme “Memorials and Commemoration: How the Saints Remember and Celebrate History.”
The symposium is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 22, at Brigham Young University, and Friday, Oct. 23, at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City. No registration is required and admission is free.
The event is sponsored by BYU’s Department of Church History and Doctrine and the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The symposium brings historians and scholars together to share research on Church history with one another and with interested Latter-day Saints and friends of the Church. Past presenters have included General Authorities, historians, scholars, educators and authors.
Elder Kyle S. McKay, a General Authority Seventy who serves as the Church historian and recorder, will be one of the featured speakers at this year’s symposium. He will speak during the plenary session on Friday, Oct. 23, at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. His remarks are titled, “That All People of the Earth Might Know.”
Edward Linenthal, a professor emeritus at Indiana University, will give a keynote address on Thursday, Oct. 22, at the BYU Conference Center in Provo, Utah.
Over two days, scholars and historians will present on various topics related to the theme, including how Latter-day Saints preserve and share their history through monuments, historic sites, pageants, personal keepsakes and community traditions.
Those unable to attend in person can watch select Thursday and Friday sessions via Zoom. Links to those sessions and the full two-day schedule are available at religion.byu.edu/conferences/church-history.
