My friends, I am a bit aghast over what I've just learned. In my Inbox this morning was a text which, if legitimate, is of enormous consequence. As always, the material should be treated with caution--I'm not certain that this is 100% true, though after asking around a bit, and in light of Kevin Graham's thread, I have powerful reasons to believe that this "intel" is correct.
Though I'm tempted to provide a lot of set-up and context, I think it would be best if I simply cut to the chase. According to my informant and the information s/he provided:
Daniel C. Peterson will no longer be the editor of the Mormon Studies Review.
In effect, his multidecade "reign of terror" has come to an end. The Powers-that-Be at the Maxwell Institute have finally had enough of the polemics and smear campaigns, and thus DCP and Company are being kicked to the curb.
Now lest you be inclined to dismiss all of this as mere rumor, let me add a key detail: I was sent what appears to be the text of an email that was sent to DCP by MI Director M. Gerald Bradford. Here is the entirety of that message (and please bear in mind that I have not confirmed that the text is authentic):
On Jun 14, 2012, at 10:43 AM, [M. Gerald Bradford] <xxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx> wrote:
Dear Dan:
I trust all goes well with your travels. I was hoping to hear from you on the Review before you left. Given how far behind it is, we need to decide its future and address our breach of expectations with its subscribers. Our front office staff are even now soliciting subscription renewals for a periodical that is now two issues behind schedule. And I'm unwilling to publish 23:2 as it stands.
I remain convinced that the time has come for us to take the Review in a different direction, along the lines of the prospectus I gave you. But I now realize it was wrong of me to ask you to accept and execute my editorial vision in place of your own. I value you as an academic colleague and I respect your right to pursue the research and publication projects you find inspiring and valuable. I will continue to support you in this regard. But what we need to do to properly affect this change in the Review is to ask someone else, someone working in the mainstream of Mormon studies, who has a comparable vision to my own for what it can accomplish, to edit the publication and devote whatever time it takes to make this happen. I plan to begin the process of finding a new editor right away. At the same time, I would welcome your continued involvement as a member of its soon-to-be-formed editorial advisory board. I believe you will continue to find much in it to commend, and it will be a better publication for your involvement.
I plan to announce that the Review will be on hiatus until this process is completed. In the interim, we will settle things up with our current subscribers. I want to make this announcement as soon as possible and word it the right way.
I’m sensitive to the fact that there are those who would love nothing better than to make something of a change in editors and I’m concerned that we not give them any grounds to do this. I would appreciate any ideas you have along these lines that I might include in this announcement. Please be assured that, while brief, it will be positive and will highlights the important things that the Review has achieved under your helm during the past two decades plus. It will also indicate that the recently christened Mormon Studies Review is going to chart a new course, with a new editorial team, one that will bring it explicitly in-line with the scholarly agenda of the Institute, that will ensure that it clearly complements the Journal and Studies, and that will further enable it to make solid, scholarly contributions to Mormon studies.
Please let me hear from you in the next week or so. I’ll make the announcement sometime around the first of the month.
All the best,
Jerry
If this is true, it would verify what Kevin Graham said about "changes" at the MI, and it would certainly be a step in the right direction.
As always, I need to offer the usual caveats about skepticism and so on. I guess it will become clear in the coming weeks whether this is legitimate or not.
Note: DCP's response to the above message can be seen here:
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