Kayla Becknuss

Advisor

Dr. Andrea Turpin

Education

M.A.R., Yale University

B.A. in History, Brigham Young University

Biography

I graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.A. in History and Global Women’s Studies and was a Religion and English teacher in Sydney, Australia. I most recently received a Master of Arts in Religious Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies degree at Yale Divinity School.

Research Interests

My research interests lie at the intersection of religion, history, and gender studies, with a particular focus on understanding how these disciplines intersect and influence societal norms and values. Particularly formative was my M.A. thesis, under the direction of Drs. Bruce Gordon and Tisa Wenger, where I critiqued Joseph Smith’s translation of the King James Bible and argued that it was used to indoctrinate and support his own concepts on gender roles, sexuality, and marriage. My research in Mormon Studies has led me to questions on whether/how gendered disparities and concepts from biblical texts and criticisms from the nineteenth century are influential in other American institutions, social movements, and public policies. Drawing on my field experiences across various archives over the last two years, I aim to advance my research interests in doctoral study. As a research fellow at Hebrew University and the Israel Museum, I worked alongside historians and archaeologists across many excavation sites where I spent time studying artifacts and archival documents on the Canaanite Goddesses in the Hebrew Bible. In addition, I have spent time in archives at the Latter-day Saint Church History Library, the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University, the Massachusetts Historical Society Library, the Beinecke Library, and the Divinity Special Collections at Yale. 

Why I Chose Baylor

I chose Baylor University to collaborate with and learn from proximate scholars like Dr. Andrea Turpin whose work on women’s religious history in nineteenth-century America initially sparked my interest in studying gender in religion, Dr. Beth Allison Barr with her recent work in women in modern evangelicalism and the impacts of the Bible and patriarchy in American society, Dr. Elesha J. Coffman’s and Dr. Robert Elder’s expertise in American Protestantism, religious history, and gender studies in the nineteenth-century who would inform important frameworks for my area of study. In addition to the great leading work in Women’s Religious History in the History department, I also am excited to work with Baylor’s Religion department with professors such as Dr. Lidija Novakovic for her research in New Testament and biblical criticisms.

Academic Publications

Articles

• “Mormonism and the Bible: Gender in the Nineteenth-Century America” in New Religious Movements in Romantic and Victorian Print Culture, Indiana University
• “Reconsidering Women’s Roles in the New Testament” Publication, The LDS Women’s Project, Mormon Women Journal
• “The Female Stigma: Menstruation Attitudes in the Women’s Liberation Movement” AWE: A Woman’s Experience, Global Women’s Studies Journal, Brigham Young University
• “Eve, the Ezer” AWE: A Woman’s Experience, Global Women’s Studies Journal, Brigham Young University

Selected Activities

Awards

• Women’s History Award in the Department of History for “The Female Stigma: Menstruation Attitudes in the Women’s Liberation Movement”

Fellowships

• Two Brothers Research Fellowship, Yale University
• Research Fellow at Hebrew University, Institute of Archeology, and Israel Antiquities Authority
• Guittard Fellowship, Baylor University, 2024-2025

Recent Presentations

• MA Thesis and Defense, “Mormonism and the Bible: The Development of a Woman’s Place in the Latter-Day Saint Church in Nineteenth-Century America” Yale University
• “Expanding the Mormon Doctrine of Heavenly Mother” Presentation, Faith and Knowledge Conference, Claremont University
• “’A Mother There’: Feminine Divines in Religious History and the Restoration of a Heavenly Mother” Presentation, Mormon History Association Conference, Rochester, New York

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