On writing Mormon women’s history

So in my ever-stewing never-ending revisions of my work on Mormonism in the Philadelphia area, I’ve decided that I need to say more about women. This is a challenge since my sources are overwhelmingly written by men. I do have some detailed journals that I can mine better than I have though.

Anyway, up at the archives the other day and I came across another letter from a woman in the area (making a total of 5 letters by women in all).

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Mormonism and Manifest Destiny

So I was thinking about Edje’s comment on Russell’s “Why I am a Tory” post:

If the British had stuck to the Proclamation of 1763 indefinitely (forbidding English subjects from settling west of the Appalachians) I think it would have made it rather difficult to implement any sort of centralized gathering scheme. The reaction would have been similar to what actually happened in the US, but with centralized law enforcement and nowhere to go, the Mormons would have been eradicated.

If I recall the diggers attempted a commune in 17th century England and were eradicated. Yet, if I recall, a major reason for the Proclamation of 1763 was to keep the colonists from encroaching on native lands. Since Russell had us on the topic of 1 Nephi 13, I’ll quote verse 14: “And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it as upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten.”

If the Mormons needed to have a frontier to flee to, were they a part of the manifest destiny movement, or were they fleeing from it?

Joy of Grad School

Today while going door to door collection money for our kids’ school with my almost eight-year-old daughter, I asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up. She said “I don’t know, maybe I want to be an artist or a student like you,” and she affectionately kissed me on the arm. While she meant it as a sign of affection I had to interject, “Wait honey, a student isn’t something you do when you grow up, it’s something you do in order to do something else. You see, I want to be a professor.” To this she responded in a very sympathetic voice, “Do you really think you’ll be able to do that?” To which I responded, “Yes, of course.” To which her reply (having lost the sympathetic tone) “Yeah right, in like 10 years or something.”

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Science as a Vocation: Max Weber, Science, and the Believer

By Steve Fleming

I spent a chunk of my time in this year’s Bushman seminar insisting that I would not make any attempts at an empirical case about the subjects I was writing on (Swedenborg and DC 76 and Joseph Smith and magic). I would simply state how I saw the issue as a believer. In fact, that’s sort of how I’ve approached my scholarship: I’ve published articles with “academic” language in academic journals (Church History, RAC) and articles with “confessional” language in confessional journals (the Religious Educator). Though the academic articles come across as more sophisticated they are easier to write since in academic journals one does not speak of absolute truth but in confessional journals one does.

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What is Our Obligation? The 2008 Bushman Seminar

Stephen J. Fleming is a PhD. candidate at UC Santa Barbara in Religious Studies and a 2008 Bushman fellow. Steve received his B.A. in history from BYU and his M.A. from UC Stanislaus, also in history. He has been published in Church History and Religion and American Culture, as well as various Mormon journals. Steve has been gracious enough to share his thoughts on this year’s Bushman Seminar.

What is our obligation?

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