Professor Carter Charles will present on the topic of “Yankees Go Home: Social and Governmental Representations of ‘Mormons’ in Secular France.” In the minds of many French people, “Mormons” are foreign to French national identity. Starting with approval for the Paris LDS temple, this presentation discusses how government officials have navigated policies towards the Church and its adherents.
Clayton Van Woerkom will present on the topic of “Becoming Good Muslims: Pious Republican Personhood in Small-town France.” While most scholarship on Islam in France has focused on large urban areas, this presentation ethnographically engages Muslims in a small French town. It explores the ways a community of Muslims seeks to become good people who are simultaneously Muslim and French.
Dr. Carter Charles is an assistant professor in the department of Church History & Doctrine and visiting faculty in the department of French & Italian at BYU. He studies the social and religious trajectories of Latter-day Saints in France.
Clayton Van Woerkom is an MA student in social anthropology at Brigham Young University and a Kennedy Center Student Research Fellow. His research interests include language, religion, personhood, migration, transnationalism, and secularism.
Part of the Kennedy Center's fall 2022 lecture series, "The Global Religious Experience."