The Sound of Mormonism is an annotated and expanded version of the 2023 lecture “Music & the Unspoken Truth”—an homage to the Music and the Spoken Word radio program and a meditation on the relationships between religion, music, vocality, and quietude.

The Arrington Lecture series, established in honor of one of the twentieth-century American West’s most distinguished historians, Leonard Arrington, has become a leading forum for prominent scholars to address topics related to Latter-day Saint history. Utah State University hosts the Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture Series through the Merrill-Cazier Library’s Special Collections and Archives.

Jared Farmer is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of four previous books, including On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape, winner of the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians.