Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

A few Mormon studies-related links from around the internet over the last (couple) week(s):

Seth Perry authored a provocative review essay of Terryl Givens’s Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Reflecting on the book’s “emphatically male framing,” Perry examines it against the backdrop of contemporary Mormon debates over sex roles:

Wrestling the Angel is a comprehensive synthesis of Mormon theology. It?s not specifically about the theological particulars that undergird the Church?s increasingly unpopular sexual politics. Right now, however, those particulars are what people are interested in, and Givens?s struggle with them is emblematic of his Church?s current predicament. In a different era, a cogent, explicitely Christian synthesis of Mormon theology such as this one would have performed an apologetic purpose, giving Mormon thought the dignity it deserves. Nowadays, though, Mormon thought largely has that dignity. What readers both inside and outside the Church wonder about now is why it is so closely associated with an understanding of sex and gender that many find backward. The theological answers presented here are haunted by political questions.

A recent episode of Backstory with the American History Guys on “island hopping” included some discussion of James Strang and Beaver Island. Elsewhere on the radio, Doug Fabrizio discussed age and leadership in the LDS Church with scholars Richard Bushman and Greg Prince. Bushman, along with his wife and fellow scholar Claudia, were interviewed over at Past is Present, the official blog of the American Antiquarian Society, where the Bushmans have spent the year as Distinguished Scholars in Residence. Two excerpts of interest:

Past is Present: Richard, same question for you. How do you first become interested in a project? You have two strains in your work, one on American life and culture more generally and one on Joseph Smith and Mormonism.

RB: It?s that double life that lies behind this project. I?m basically an early American historian, but from time to time I?ve been asked to do something on Mormonism, so I got involved in writing about Joseph Smith. As I was looking for a new project on the early American history side, I thought I ought to do something that would interact with the work I was doing on Joseph Smith. His family were farmers, so I thought, ?Well, I?ll see what I can find out about farmers.? And it worked out well. The two halves fed into each other. I use the Joseph Smith example, his family, in the farm work and the other way around.

and:

Past is Present: I guess one more question. If there?s one book that you could write that you haven?t written yet, what would it be? One topic that you would love to cover.

CB: Well, I have two projects. One is [an oral history project on Mormon women]. The other one is my autobiography. I?m doing this for lots of reasons, but one is that women don?t write their autobiographies and they always apologize for doing it. They say, ?I wouldn?t have done this, but my children, my neighbors asked me.? Because that?s the way we feel. Women shouldn?t, we?re just not important enough to write about ourselves. So I decided that that would be one of my final women?s studies projects, that I would tell my own story, and I?m about halfway done with it, I guess. I have plenty more to do. Seeing as I was not apologizing for it, I would give it an in-your-face title. So the title is, I, Claudia. So you take yourself seriously, but not too seriously. Will anybody ever publish it? I don?t know. My family can publish it. See, now I?m already apologizing! That?s bad. We just don?t want to apologize for ourselves, because it?s so important to have women?s autobiographies. Those that we have we value so much.  I don?t dare think of another project until I get those done.

Meanwhile, over at the Salt Lake Tribune, Peggy Fletcher Stack reported on a youth Sunday School teacher in Hawaii who was released after using the church’s recently-published essay on race and the priesthood in one of his lessons.

A CNN profile of Mormonism in Cambodia provided a fascinating look at the religious politics of temple work for the dead in a predominantly Buddhist country.

In academic conference news, the Mormon Pacific Historical Society released the CFP for its fall conference, to be held on the campus of BYU-Hawaii October 23-24.

We’ll wrap things up with a couple of bloggernacle links: First, a post over at By Common Consent by Steve Evans reflecting on the present and future of Mormon Studies, which sparked a lively conversation in the comments section and a lengthier response from Ardis Parshall over at Keepapitchinin on “Academia vs. Scholarship” (that’s the second link). Be sure and read both.

News from MHA and the Weekly Roundup

First, some very important new from this week comes from our friends at the Mormon History Association (from their Facebook page):

We regret to announce that Debra and David Marsh have resigned as executive directors of the Mormon History Association. We thank them for their service and wish them well in their future endeavors. MHA office assistance is in place. We are grateful to MHA’s program committee and local arrangements committee, who continue in their efforts to provide an outstanding 50th-Anniversary Conference this June.

Board of Directors, Mormon History Association

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MSWR: 22?28 March

There is much to highlight, so let’s get started:

110th Translation of the Book of Mormon Published (LDS Church Growth)

?Kosraean is the 110th language into which the Church has translated the Book of Mormon. Other translations of the Book of Mormon that have been completed within the past seven years include Malay, Slovak, Serbian, and Yoruba.? See also: Kosraean language

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Weekly Round-Up

After a brief hiatus, we are back with the weekly round-up. Let’s go!

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

Hey gang, let’s recap what happened this week in Mormonism and Mormon History. Vamos!

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup: The “Really?!” Edition

My world is crashing down around me. Things I never thought would happen are happening: A federal court has declared that Utah?s anti-polygamy law is unconstitutional and the LDS Church has produced a statement admitting that the priesthood ban was largely the result of nineteenth-century racism. The Salt Lake Tribune lauded the church for its decision to publish the essay as part of a series answering questions about its beliefs. In Religion and Politics, Max Mueller was similarly optimistic about the effects of the essay. He sees the document as the repudiating the church?s racist past and officially addressing the ban?s origins in statements by leaders like Brigham Young. For him, it is a monumental document that represents the beginnings of a sea change in the church?s positions on race. Other commenters have been less optimistic. Gina Colvin argued on her blog that the priesthood ban and ideas that African Americans had been less valiant in the preexistence had been taught as doctrine and as such, deserved to be addressed in General Conference rather than in a letter hidden on the church?s website. In a podcast with Dan Wotherspoon, Margaret Young, and Janan Graham, she further argued that the essay had been written from the perspective of the institutional church and failed to provide readers with the stories and voices of those who had been marginalized by the priesthood ban. Colvin has not been the statement?s only critic. At Young Mormon Feminists, Nick Lindsey suggests that the document creates a fiction that church leaders were always working towards racial equality rather than participating in and furthering racist discourses that relegated African Americans to the margins of Mormon society. KUTV released a fairly tempered article suggesting that the church?s statement was the result of a desire to answer questions that were arising because of information available on the Internet. Although the article did not address claims that the document represented a change in the church?s position on the priesthood ban, its analysis was less jubilant some of the others that have addressed the issue this week.

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup: “Today We Renounce” Edition

So the ‘nacle is abuzz with discussion of past mistakes, historical distance, and leadership mistakes. But enough about the woeful judging at the “Beardliness is Next to Godliness” competition, which robbed our own Jordan W. as well as a few others who were more adventurous than the boring Heber J. Grant-style.

Beyond the always-crucial discussion of beards, I guess race was also an important talking point this week.

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

Welcome to the Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup! Let?s get down to business.

The ever-insightful Jana Reiss recently published an article with Publishers Weekly, where she attempts to quantify the extent of Mormon Studies publishing. In a teaser posted on her blog, she reports that, while many presses struggle just to break even on most academic books, Mormon tomes tend to outpace expectations. An average (non-Mormon) book has to sell more than 1,500 copies just to stay out of the red. John Turner?s award-winning biography of Brigham Young, put out by Harvard University Press, sold an eye-popping 10,000 copies during its first year in print. Oxford University Press told Jana that the Mormon Studies category in its catalog is easily in the top three in terms of sales, with Massacre at Mountain Meadows ranking in the press?s top ten best sellers in the overall Religion category over the last two decades. Jana doesn?t provide a number for copies sold, but knowledgeable observers associated with the JI suggest that it exceeds 65,000. Although Jana doesn?t address it in her blog post, the number of mid-tier presses trying to get into the Mormon Studies market is also increasing (I?ll defer to Ben, the JI?s resident Mormon Studies watcher, to provide a list in the comments section). This week’s announcement of Fairleigh Dickenson University’s new Mormon Studies series demonstrates this.

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup (7 September 2013); Thunderstruck Edition

The biggest Mormon studies news this week is either that: A) the American Bible Society still exists, and also that 47% of Americans, according to the still-existing American Bible Society, believe that the Book of Mormon and Bible “teach the same spiritual truths.”

Or, B) That TLC is going to grace us with another reality show about a polygamous family.

Shut down the presses, everybody.

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup (August 25, 2013)

‘Nother week, ‘nother roundup. Let’s do this.

Not to be confused with the Army of Helaman.

First up, the LDS Church reached a milestone by surpassing 75,000 missionaries. These two should not be counted among them.

Exciting news in Book of Mormon Studies: the Maxwell Instute has appointed Brian Hauglid as editor, and Joseph Spencer and Mark Wright as associate editors, of the re-named Journal of Book of Mormon Studies (previously named Journal of Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture and Lots of Other Names That Made this a Ridiculous Journal Title Studies). I think they should recruit this guy to write their first lead article.

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