Thoughts on Indigenous Mormon Studies

We are pleased to have this guest post by Professor Matthew Kester who is the author of Remembering Iosepa: History, Place, and Religion in the American West (Oxford University Press, 2013), the university archivist, and an assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University Hawaii.

My training as an historian of Oceania and the American West in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and my role as the custodian of archival collections on Mormonism in Oceania, led me to write on interactions between Mormons and Kanaka Maoli, the indigenous people of Hawai’i. Both Oceania and the American West are regions where indigenous people experienced massive, disruptive political, social, and economic change, and Mormon missionaries and settlers played an important role in that change. I want to use this opportunity to reflect on what I feel are some of the more important themes in the study of Mormonism and indigenous people, and suggest some ways that they might be responsibly put to use. Important, because exploring these themes will increase our understanding of these interactions and the communities they created. Responsible, because they do so in a way that represents indigenous people as full historical subjects, and as active historical agents who negotiated (and continue to negotiate) disruptive periods in their history on their own terms, at least within the confines of the larger power structures imposed by colonization, settlement, and in many cases, the erosion or loss of political sovereignty and self-determination.

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Bloggernacle, Meet The Mormon Studies Review

(Cross-posted at By Common Consent. Also, the first three paragraphs should be read in the voice of Billy Mays, and taken in the spirit of the ?Tribute to Doin? It Wrong? video. The pdf of the inaugural Mormon Studies Review‘s Table of Contents can be downloaded here.)

Do you suffer too many sleepless nights, wondering if Mormonism can add anything to the study of ethics?

Struggling to keep up with developments in the seemingly always-nascent (sub)field of Mormon studies? Do you ever walk through the book aisle and think, ?holy fetch, when did that book come out?? Have you ever found yourself wondering, ?what the heck is Mormon studies, anyway?” Or, does a sleepless night rarely go buy without you asking, ?well, how does the study of Mormonism illuminate the translocative elements of religious studies?? Well, you are not alone!

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Indian Removal, Zion, and the westward orientation of early Mormonism

This post is adapted from a presentation given at the 2012 Sidney B. Sperry Symposium at Brigham Young University.*

Ideologies can turn heads. In United States of America, ideological head turning has often been westward. In this post I argue that it was the ideology and force of Indian Removal that turned the heads of early Mormons and oriented them to the West.

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The Oral History of a LDS ?Asdzáánsání in Diné Bizaad

Many Farms Lake

?Asdzáánsání (elderly woman)

Diné Bizaad (Navajo language)

Before reading this post, please note that we faced technological issues with using Navajo diacritical marks on the blog so some of the Navajo here does not directly represent the revised transcript of the oral history. The two symbols that would not appear on this blog were the slashed l and nasal marks. I italicize the l (l) to represent the slashed l and italicize vowels that should include a nasal mark (a, o, and e especially). Different literature often does not follow a standard written Navajo form with consistent use of diacritical marks for terms.

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Figurative Mormons, or Something

As of last Sunday, I have posted every week for fifty-two weeks in a row. Posting every week didn?t start out as a thing, but it became one somewhere along the way and, proportionate to its actual importance in the world, I?m pretty dang pumped about completing a year. In particular, now that it?s done I can have Saturday evenings (and lately, Sunday afternoons) back: as of today I?m shifting to a once-per-month or once-per-two-month schedule.

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Guest Post: James Egan, ?Sermonizing with Heathens?

JI would like to welcome James Egan. He is a third-year law student at Brigham Young University who studied literature and political philosophy at the University of Utah.  He reads JI  regularly and loves jazz music. 

I must confess at the outset of this post that I am most definitely an amateur when it comes to Mormon history. (If I had the guts, I?d confess that I am in fact a law student.) So with the all-too-convenient excuse for ignorance that my amateur status afforded me (I trust I haven?t lost it yet), I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the annual Maxwell Institute Seminar, which gave time to dive into the deep well of early Mormon primary documents. I spent a good portion of my time in the Utah sermons of the latter half of the 19^th century, and my paper for the seminar?s symposium[1] grew out of a fascinating remark in one of Brigham Young?s earlier sermons. During one of his many calls for gathering truth from every corner of the world, Young pointed the saints to ?pagans of all countries? and made the remarkable claim that ?in their religious rights [sic] and ceremonies may be found a great many truths which we will also gather home to Zion.?[2] I ended up writing about the elements of Mormon intellectual history that made it possible for Brigham Young to entertain the possibility that pagan or heathen[3] ritual would be a part of Mormon gathering, but along the way, I spent a little time considering how other invocations of heathen nations functioned rhetorically in Young?s sermons.[4]

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True Blue, Depending on Who’s Telling the Tale: The Redacted Story of Joseph F. Smith and the ?Ruffians?

It?s a powerful story.  The young Joseph F. Smith, fresh off his mission to the Sandwich Islands, is traveling through Southern California on his way home to Utah in late 1857/early 1858.  The Mormons are viewed with mistrust and hostility:  rumors surrounding the Mountain Meadows Massacre are fresh on everyone?s lips as Johnston?s Army converges on Utah.  Joseph F.?s party is confronted by a band of rough and tumble men on horseback, looking to pick a fight with any Mormons they can find.  Joseph F.?s fellow travelers scatter, and when one burly ruffian pointedly asks Joseph F. if he is a Mormon, the young returned missionary responds, ?Yes, siree, dyed-in-the-wool; true blue, through and through,? diffusing the tense confrontation by staying true to his identity.

But was he really ?dyed-in-the-wool, true blue, through and through??

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Graphical Images of Horned Mormons

I am writing (very slowly) an article on Mormon horns. The way things look to me now, it seems that ?Mormon horns? were mostly a verbal, rather than graphical, phenomenon. That is, the idea that Mormons have/had horns seems to have been transmitted mostly through oral and written accounts rather than by the distribution of images. Such images did exist, however, and the purpose of this post is to collate all the horned-Mormon graphics I have identified and solicit further examples. (Note: clicking on most of the images below will link to higher resolution graphics.)

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

We have a lot of links to share this week, so I’m going to dive right in.

For those of you curious about other faiths and in need of more direct contact with believers than the Internet can give you, there’s now “speed faithing.” (Yes, that is a reference to speed dating.) KSL reports this is happening at college campuses around the country: participants have ten minutes to talk about their faith to interested listeners. Coming soon to a campus near you, perhaps.

On a political front, two links talking about the Mormon contribution to the gay rights bill passed on Monday: one from the Post, one from the NY Times.

The 2013-2014 list of Nibley Fellows includes two of our own: Joey Stuart and Jordan Watkins. Congratulations to all.

Buzzfeed weighs in on the “post-Mormon moment” moment: “Although Mormonism isn?t in the spotlight like it was a year ago, it?s more a part of the national conversation than it was before Romney?s candidacy, and how the faith is perceived, both inside and outside the church, has changed.”

The Orlando Sentinel announced that the LDS Church will soon own 2% of Florida with its recent purchase of over 300,000 acres. It is hailed as a “transaction between two of Florida’s largest and most committed land stewards [and] a meaningful reminder of the economic and ecological value of agriculture in our state.” The land will continue to be used for agricultural and timber purposes.

The Salt Lake Tribune featured a short piece on food storage, for those of you interested in the practice or perhaps needing a reminder to work on your own: “After two wars, numerous natural disasters and an economic downturn, Americans suddenly have a voracious appetite for survival skills. They?re researching underground bunkers, buying freeze-dried food and watching television reality shows like “Doomsday Preppers.” But long before “prepping” became popular, faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had mastered the art of food storage and emergency preparedness.”

Mother of six Michelle Mumford is the new dean of admissions at BYU law school. Vivia Chen interviews Mumford at thecareerist.com about motherhood, the law, and BYU. Mumford acknowledges the pressures facing Utah working women from inside the Mormon community, but also says, “I think I have a story that will help attract women. I can show women what the possibilities are: If you want to work, you can. . . . [But] it will be a while before it’s the norm.” (The law school is currently 39% female.)

If you’ve been reading the blog, you’re aware that November is National Native American Heritage Month. The National Archives has a page of resources for those wanting to learn more, both in and out the classroom. Worth your while.

Lastly, the Church announced that the general Relief Society and Young Women meetings currently held on the Saturday before General Conference will now be replaced by a semi-annual general women’s meeting, including Primary girls age 8 and up. Deseret News writes about the change here. Interestingly enough, this is a return to the past: the separate meetings were started in 1993.

Journal of Mormon History – Call for Papers, Student Edition

The Journal of Mormon History will be sponsoring a special issue devoted to innovative student scholarship. The issue, which will be edited by Christopher Jones and Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, will seek to highlight a wide variety of perspectives and methodologies. They particularly welcome submissions that take seriously Mormonism’s international history, its engagement with non-white people, and its emphasis upon materiality. Please see the call for papers below.

Call For Papers

Special Student Issue of the Journal of Mormon History

Fall 2015

The Journal of Mormon History is seeking contributions for a special issue that will highlight the work of undergraduate and graduate students working on Mormon history. Papers may address any aspect of the Restoration Movement, including the Community of Christ and Mormon fundamentalists. The Journal is especially interested in contributions that address Mormonism?s racial and geographic diversity, twentieth-century Mormon history, and material culture. All topics and contributions, however, will be given serious consideration.

Interested students should submit a short 500-word abstract of their suggested article along with a CV or brief biography by January 1^st, 2014. Accepted articles will be due September 1^st, 2014 for planned publication in Fall 2015.  The issue will be co-edited by Amanda Hendrix-Komoto (PhD Candidate, University of Michigan) and Christopher Jones (PhD Candidate, College of William and Mary).

Please submit all abstracts and CVs to either Amanda Hendrix-Komoto (hendrixa@umich.edu) or Christopher Jones (chrisjones13@gmail.com)