The Unseating of Dr. Smoot

The Unseating of Dr. Smoot opens with the title character Rebecca Smoot aboard a flight to Salt Lake City. Having recently had her tenure clock reset for her position at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Smoot is visiting her home state for a "not exactly a job interview" meeting with faculty at Utah Valley University and to give a lecture at Brigham Young University on Marilynne Robinson's Gilead novels. In the days after her lecture, Smoot also visits with her college-aged niece, best friend from her undergrad days, and widowed father before returning to Wisconsin. Inspired by the structure of a typical LDS sacrament meeting (complete with chapter titles like Opening Hymn, Youth Talk, and Visiting Authority Remarks). The Unseating of Dr. Smoot is about scholarship, art, academic politics, and what it's like to have an enduring but complicated relationship with one's faith, religion, occupation, loved ones, and the place where you grew up. This volume also contains two short stories Morris has labeled precursors: "Conference" and "The Ward Organist," which won first place in the 2023 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought short fiction contest.