Armand L. Mauss received a bachelor’s degree in history and Asian studies from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, and both a master’s degree in history and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Mauss retired in 1999 as Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Religious Studies at Washington State University. Since 2005, he has taught courses in Mormon Studies as adjunct faculty in the School of Religion of the Claremont Graduate University. During his career, he has also been a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara; the University of Calgary; and the University of Lethbridge; and Visiting College Fellow in Religious Studies at Durham University in the UK.
He is author, co-author, or editor of several books, including Neither White nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race Issue in a Universal Church, with Lester E. Bush (Signature Books, 1984); The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (University of Illinois Press, 1994); and All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (University of Illinois Press, 2003), the latter two of which were awarded best book prizes by the Mormon History Association. He is also author of a hundred or so articles and reviews in professional sociological journals and in the journals of LDS scholarship, including Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought; the Journal of Mormon History, BYU Studies(reviews), and Sunstone Magazine.
His distinctions in academia during his career more generally include editorship of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, the main national journal in the social-science study of religion; election to the governing councils of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and of the Association for the Sociology of Religion; and presidential candidate for those same societies. His distinctions in the realm of Mormon studies include twenty years on various advisory boards for Dialogue and then on the Dialogue Board of Directors,1999-2008 (four of them as chairman); selection as Redd Center lecturer at BYU (November 1982); two prizes for best articles in social literature from Dialogue (1972 and 1996); and, from the Mormon History Association, two best book awards (best first book in 1994 and best book in 2003), as well as MHA’s 1994 Grace Fort Arrington Award for historical excellence.
In his formal Church callings, Dr. Mauss served a mission to the New England States, 1947-1949, and since then he has served as a branch president and district president (overseas), a bishop’s counselor, a high priest group leader, a Gospel Doctrine teacher, and, more recently as a member of his stake’s Public Affairs Council. In less formal and more ancillary capacities, he has served the Church as a professional consultant to the Presiding Bishop’s Office (1964-1968) and to the Research Information Division (periodically during the 1970s and 1980s). Since 2005, he has also been active on the LDS Council for Mormon Studies at the School of Religion, Claremont Graduate University. He has been married to the former Ruth E. Hathaway for 59 years. They are the parents of eight children, 21 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
FairMormon Conference Presentations
The LDS Church and the Race Issue: A Study in Misplaced Apologetics (2003)
