Boyd Petersen

Boyd Jay Petersen (born February 23, 1962) is a biographer of Hugh Nibley, a professor at Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University, and a candidate for the Utah House of Representatives in the 2012 elections.

Biography

Petersen was born in Provo, Utah, and raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). From 1980-1981, he was a proselyting missionary in Paris, France.

After his mission, Petersen attended Brigham Young University (BYU), receiving his bachelors degree French and international relations in 1988. In 1995, he received an M.A. in comparative literature from the University of Maryland at College Park.^[1] In 2007, he completed his Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Utah's Department of Languages and Literature.^[2]

Petersen has been an intern for the U.S. House of Representatives, in the staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and a Senior Information Specialist for the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress.^[3]

In 1984, Petersen married Zina Nibley, a daughter of Hugh Nibley.^[4] They have four children and reside in Provo, Utah.^[1]

Petersen has been a lecturer in the honors program at BYU, and for the English and Humanities Departments at Utah Valley University, where he received a Faculty Excellence Award in 2006.^[5] Through his familial relationship to Hugh Nibley, Petersen authored the 2002 biography Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life (ISBN 978-1589580206). Petersen has also published articles in several journals, including BYU Studies, Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and the Journal of Mormon History.^[1]

Petersen is the program coordinator for Mormon Studies at Utah Valley University.^[6] He has also been on the board of directors for the Association for Mormon Letters, Mormon Scholars in the Humanities, and Segullah, a Mormon-themed literary journal.^[5] He will be AML's next president.

Political campaigns

In March 2008, Petersen announced his candidacy for District 64 of the Utah State House of Representatives, running as a socially conservative Democrat in a heavily conservative region. He opposed Republican Rebecca Lockhart on a platform of ethics and health care reform, as well as improved public education.^[7]

Petersen lost the election on November 4, receiving 30 percent of the vote, compared to Lockhart's 66 percent.^[8]

In November 2012, Petersen will be again running against Lockhart for District 64.^[9]

Published works

• Petersen, Boyd (1997-98). "Youth and Beauty: The Correspondence of Hugh Nibley". BYU Studies 37 (2): 6–31.  Check date values in: |date= (help)
• —— (1997). "'Something to Move Mountains': The Book of Mormon in Hugh Nibley's Correspondence". Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 6 (2): 1–25. 
• —— (March 1998). "The Priesthood: Men's Last, Best Hope" (PDF). Sunstone 21 (1): 10–15. 
• —— (Spring 1998). "The Home Dance: Hugh Nibley Among the Hopi". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 31 (1): 23–35. 
• —— (December 1998). "On Exceptions to Generalities and the Fine Art of Speculation" (PDF). Sunstone 21 (4): 63–65. 
• —— (2001). "'Something to Move Mountains': Hugh Nibley's Devotion to the Book of Mormon". In Richard H. Cracroft, Jane D. Brady, Linda Hunter Adams. Colloquium: Essays in Literature and Belief. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University. 
• —— (Winter 2002). "Landscapes of Seduction: Terry Tempest Williams's Desert Quartet and the Biblical Song of Songs". ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (Reno, Nevada: Association for the Study of Literature and Environment) 9 (1). 
• —— (2002). Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life. Salt Lake City, Utah: Greg Kofford Books. ISBN 978-1-58958-020-6. 
• —— (December 2002). "Truth is Stranger Than Folklore: Hugh Nibley--the Man and the Legend" (PDF). Sunstone (125): 18–23. 
• —— (2005). "Response to Leaving the Saints". FARMS Review 17 (2): 217–51. 
• —— (2005). "As Things Stand at the Moment: Responding to Martha Beck's Leaving the Saints". FAIR Conference. 
• —— (2005). "What I Learned about Life, the Church, and the Cosmos from Hugh Nibley". FAIR Conference. 
• —— (2005). "Double or Phantom?: Transgenerational Haunting in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein". The New York Review of Science Fiction 17 (12): 16–20. 
• —— (2006). "The Reality of Artifice: Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s L’Ève future and the Anxiety of Reproduction". The New York Review of Science Fiction 18 (10). 
• —— (2007). Myths of Male Mothers: Allegorical Renderings of the Birth Topos in Nineteenth-Century Poetic Production. Saarbrucken, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller. 
• —— (April 2008). "Mormonism and Torture: Paradoxes and First Principles". Sunstone (149): 69–71. 
• —— (July 2009). "Soulcraft 101: Faith, Doubt, and the Process of Education". Sunstone (155): 42–50. 
• —— (September 1, 2009). "Why I'm a Mormon Democrat". Patheos. Retrieved 2009-09-05. 
• —— (Winter 2010). "Hugh Nibley: A Life of Faith, Learning, and Teaching". Religious Education Review 3 (1): 10–15. 
• —— (August 9, 2010). "Mormon Democrats at a Crossroads". Patheos. Retrieved 2010-08-11. 

Notes

External links

• Petersen's blog
• Petersen's faculty web page at UVU
• 2008 Campaign website
• 2008 Campaign blog