Reminder: Abstracts for Mormon History Association Conference Due Monday, October 1st

Susa Young Gates, Juanita Brooks, and Plural Marriage: Situating the Legacy of Polygamy in the 1920s and 1930s

Natalie Rose is a doctoral candidate in America history at Michigan State University. She also holds a M.A. degree in women?s history from Sarah Lawrence College. She is currently researching and writing her dissertation on how adolescent Mormon women reacted to larger changes in the religion and culture from the 1870s to 1920s. ”  Her dissertation adds a lot to discussions of women in Mormon history and the transition from polygamy to monogamy.  We are excited to have her guest at JI.

In an interview from the World War One era with Emma Lucy Gates, daughter of Susa Young Gates and an acclaimed opera singer born in 1882, she commented that polygamy could help women in the ?war-drained? European nations. She claimed: ?Many girls in the old world have told me that they would much prefer being a plural mate of a man who could give them a pleasant home, where they could live a useful life, to being an old maid.? When asked about eugenics and Mormonism, Emma Lucy Gates stated that the current ?Mormon standard of purity? rendered the practice of Eugenics unnecessary amongst Mormon men and women. Emma Lucy Gates? commentary was not uncommon but actually part of a developing discourse that aimed to situate the legacy of polygamy within the early twentieth century.

Last summer while I was conducting research at the Utah State Archives in Salt Lake City,

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Remarkably Clever: The Mormons and Jane Austen

Jane Austen died in 1818 with mild recognition but little success. The latter part of the twentieth century saw a dramatic surge in Austen?s popularity, first with reprints and films and later with a multitude of spin-offs. In the early twenty-first century Miss Austen seems nearly ubiquitous. Jane even has her own font (see the title). Though the literary Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy may be your favorite, the options are plentiful. You might pick the Colin Firth version of Darcy (with or without dripping shirt), you might also choose a dashing yet stern 1940 Sir Lawrence Olivier, or 2005 Matthew MacFayden, or even Colin Firth as Bridget Jones? Mark Darcy, or Darcy meeting his match in Lizzy Zombie Killer. (A hint: heads rolled.)

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Multiple Universes and the Existence of God

In the thirteen century, Aristotle became all the rage among European intellectuals.  Aristotle had a systematic way of viewing universe as well as a compelling system of logic.  But God played a very minor role in Aristotle’s system: Aristotle said there was an unmoved mover, the first cause (which medieval theologians took to be God) that had set the universe in motion. But God played no role in Aristotle beyond that. Aristotle argued that the rules that governed the universe [1] were there by necessity and he also argued that there was only one universe/world [2]. This bothered medieval thinkers of the time because it seem to suggest that even if God wanted to create multiple universes/worlds, He could not. This all came to a head in 1277, when a massive condemnation of Aristotle was issued [3]: article 34 stated that it was heresy to believe “that the first cause [i.e God] could not make several worlds.” [4] Thus the possibility of God creating multiple worlds/universes was needed to preserve God’s omnipotence, even though most thinkers assumed that God, in actuality, had probably only created one world/universe.

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Guest Post: Joseph Stuart Recaps John Turner’s BYU Presentation

[From JI’s good friend Joseph Stuart.]

Before getting to my summary, many thanks to Brian Cannon, Jessie Embry, and the Charles H. Redd Center for making Professor Turner?s visit possible. It is incredibly difficult to bring open forum speakers to BYU; their efforts (and the Redd Center?s funds) made the biography and the visits possible.

Now, to the notes?

Turner?s argument took shape in the juxtaposition of two stories:  The English mission (1840) and an early ?trial? in 1849.

1840: Brigham was at Manchester, England, and nearly 40 years old, a convert of only 8 years. He was now the President of the Twelve, and was leading the Church’s mission to England and had “exactly one wife.” After six weeks in England, there had been scores, even hundreds of converts. One night, while visiting a family, HCK and BY sang and spoke in tongues. BY was disappointed that the Manchester Mormons had not yet received the Gift of Tongues. After English holiday that celebrated Pentecost, the English Saints wanted a display of the religious gifts present in Acts 2. In his diary, Brigham Young said that he and Parley Pratt talked for ?some time about the necessity of the Saints having the spirit of God.” The Saints tried to display ?gifts,? and one Brother Green ?almost spoke in tongues? (Turner quipped that the words were on the ?tip of his tongue? and ?tongue tied?). Brigham then spoke and sang in tongues, and many English Saints followed, one woman being able to speak in 7 different languages.

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Guest Post: Rosemary Avance, “Why in the world would a non-Mormon study the Church, anyway?”

Rosemary Avance is a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania?s Annenberg School for Communication where she studies the intersection of religion, culture, and the media.  She is currently the recipient of the Eccles Mormon Studies Fellowship at the University of Utah?s Tanner Humanities Center.  She is spending the year in residence in Salt Lake City, researching and writing her dissertation on modern Mormon identities.

I?m so pleased to be guest posting here at JI?one of my favorite blogs and an important source for keeping up with modern Mormon identities.  My dissertation is on just that topic: how Mormons today negotiate their identities, and particularly how the internet plays a role in the articulation of various heterodoxies.  I?ve been hesitant to comment or post here and elsewhere in the bloggernacle because my research tracks, in part, representations of Mormonism in real time?so contributing to those representations by offering my ?take? threatens to, essentially, muddy my data.  Despite all the blogs, message boards, and Facebook pages, it turns out that Mormondom online is actually quite a small world.

But I?m pleased for the opportunity to introduce myself and my academic work, so my plan is to offer a bit of my theoretical orientation to LDS identities, explain my interest and background, and then maybe complain a bit.  Because the work I?m doing is ? at the moment?incredibly frustrating.

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Rape and Marriage in Mormon History

Note: In response to the complaints in response to Saskia?s blog post and its use of a few curse words, I feel obligated to warn readers that this post and its responses may contain some light vulgarity and adult topics.  Anyone not mature enough to handle such language or topics should not read the post.

A few weeks ago, I went to a conference on Mormon women held at the University of Utah.  The room was filled with elderly feminists who had advocated for a more liberal Mormon view of women in the 1980s, middle-aged women who had commandeered their husbands into watching the kids for a few hours, and graduate students dressed in jeans and t-shirts.  The panels were varied but held together by a common focus on Mormon women and a desire to make some sort-of change in the way that women are treated in a church that privileges male experience and male members.  One of the presentations that was particularly poignant was Jennifer Finlayson-Fife?s presentation on the sexuality of Mormon women.  She described the difficulty created by expectations that young women be sexually attractive and chaste at the same.  When unwanted sexual intimacy occurs, Mormon girls are stuck between allowing him to continue, risking their purity and standing before God, and saying ?no? and losing his interest.  As a result, many Mormon women feel guilty for sexual contact they neither wanted nor consented to.

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Patrick Mason’s “Mormon Social Ethics” in Christian Century

In the August 22nd issue of Christian Century, there was a plethora of pieces on Mormonism due to Mitt Romney’s official nomination as the GOP presidential candidate. Most saw, read, and praised the thoughtful piece by Kathleen Flake on Mormonism’s scriptural canon. Others were somewhat bemused with Richard Bushman’s list of “essential books on Mormonism” (which I personally found somewhat puzzling). But there were also pieces behind the CC’s paywall that deserve attention: Ed Blum’s incisive review of Gutjahr’s The Book of Mormon: A Biography, and a very nuanced and important essay by Patrick Mason on “Visions of Zion: Changes in Mormon Social Ethics.” Not only is it great to see the CC spend so much time on Mormons, but even better to see them give the space to thoughtful and leading scholars in the field. Since many here probably don’t subscribe to the magazine, I thought I would gist Mason’s thoughtful piece.

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Goodbye to Jared T.

Recently, we here at Juvenile Instructor learned something that brings us great sorrow: Jared T., one of the blog?s original founders and most frequent contributors, had decided that the time had come for him to pursue other projects.  Jared was present at the conversation at J-Dawg?s when someone proposed a blog focusing on Mormon history. 

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Scholarly Inquiry: Spencer Fluhman takes your questions

Scholarly Inquiry is an ongoing series at the Juvenile Instructor. It aims to introduce recent scholarship in Mormon studies to a wider audience and to involve a larger community of scholars in attempts to situate the Mormon experience in wider contexts and new and innovative ways. Visiting scholars will include both Mormons and those from other faith traditions, as well as historians of Mormonism and those whose primary research interests focus on other subjects. Previous participants include Mark Ashhurst-McGee (here and here), Mark Staker (here and here), Stephen Taysom (here and here), Patrick Mason (here and here), and Paul Gutjahr (here and here). 

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