By ChristopherDecember 13, 2012
I’ve watched with interest the ongoing debates this week over the proposed “Wear Pants to Church Day” spearheaded by a group of Mormon feminists. I’ve little desire to wade into the treacherous waters that conversation has become, but thanks to our resident Strangite expert Robin Jensen, I now know that the history of Mormon women and the controversial wearing of pants extends back much earlier than the late 20th century.
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By CristineNovember 3, 2012
On Thursday, October 25, Janet Bennion, Professor of Anthropology at Lyndon State College in Vermont, delivered a lecture, ?The Faces of Eve: Varieties of Mormon Feminism,? at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University. Professor Bennion is an expert on the contemporary practice of polygamy among Mormon fundamentalists, and the author of several books on the subject. Bennion?s lecture focused on her most recent book, Polygamy in Primetime: Media, Gender, and Politics in Mormon Fundamentalism, which she presented as a synthesis of her more than twenty years of research among polygamous groups in North America. Her goal, she said, was to produce a readable work that would educate the general public about these groups, as well as better preparing law enforcement officials to deal with them?and thus to avoid another event like the ill-managed 2008 raid on the FLDS Yearning for Zion ranch in Texas.
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By CristineOctober 22, 2012
We thought that some of the New England branch of the JI community might be interested in this upcoming event at Brandeis University:
?The Faces of Eve: Varieties of Mormon Feminism?
A lecture by Janet Bennion, author of Polygamy in Primetime
Thursday, October 25, 2012, 7:00 to 9:00pm
Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Epstein Building, Brandeis University
515 South Street, Waltham MA 02454
Media portrayals of Mormon women have focused on the potential for oppression and abuse within both the mainline church and fundamentalists sects. Drawing on her 17 years of fieldwork among fundamentalist polygamous Mormons, Janet Bennion argues that some “sister wives” find fulfillment and even empowerment through their domestic arrangements. In this lecture, she will be joined by historian Laurel Ulrich to look beyond the official patriarchy and find the subtle feminisms Mormon women embody.
Janet Bennion is a professor of social sciences at Lyndon State College in Vermont. Her latest book, “Polygamy in Primetime: Media, Gender, and Politics in Mormon Fundamentalism”, was published in 2012 by the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion, and Law, a collaboration between the HBI and the University Press of New England.
Free and open to the public.
Parking in Epstein Lot.
RSVP encouraged: hbi@brandeis.edu
By HeidiOctober 21, 2012
We’re delighted to feature this contribution from JI’s good friend and former blogger Heidi Harris as part of our “I Found it in the Archives” series.
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By Andrea R-MOctober 8, 2012
President Thomas S. Monson?s announcement in General Conference on Saturday, October 6, 2012, that young women can now serve missions at age 19 is no less than revolutionary. This move might seem like a pragmatic attempt to boost global missionary efforts. However, a brief historical overview of the last century?s changes for sister missionaries provides some useful context for how remarkable this policy really is.
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By October 4, 2012
From our friends at the Church History Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
Purpose and Responsibilities
The Church History Department announces an opening for a historian/writer with an emphasis on women?s history within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Duties will include researching and writing, in collaboration with others, documentary and narrative histories on the experience of Latter-day Saint women.
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By Jenny RSeptember 19, 2012
DUP: Cornelia Harriet Hales Horne Clayton
Your initial reaction may be one of disgust (one naturally thinks of hairballs!) or disdain (how often did they wash their hair anyway?). Intricate designs of human hair, fastidiously fashioned into flowers, trees, and abstract designs, came to represent a Victorian ideal of nostalgia, elaborate texture, and ostentatious ornamentation in the memory of ancient human relics of the Saints.
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By Andrea R-MSeptember 13, 2012
The Mormon Women?s History Initiative
invites you to an evening of insights into the KUED documentary film
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By ChristopherSeptember 6, 2012
The latest issue of Religion and American Culture arrived in the mail several weeks ago, and swamped with a thousand other things to read, I tossed it on my bedside table and promptly forgot about it. While cleaning in preparation for the arrival of visitors last weekend, I pulled the issue out from under a stack of library books and scattered, semi-coherent dissertation notes I scribbled down in the middle of the night while laying in bed and quickly glanced at the table of contents. I was pleasantly surprised to see an article on Mormonism, and even more pleased when I saw that Thomas Simpson was the author.
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By JJohnsonAugust 29, 2012
Professor Jared Farmer and the State University of New York at Stonybrook very generously posted a free e-book last week?Mormons in the Media, 1832-2012. Though the title should be “Mormons in American Media,” the 342-page book and the hundreds of images therein need to be seen. They are beautiful and brilliant?some impressively horrific in their full technicolor glory. Farmer builds upon a foundation established by Gary Bunker and Davis Bitton in their 1983 The Mormon Graphic Image, 1833-1914: Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations and is able to radically enlarge it. The expansive scope of these pages can easily induce a little head spinning?the very best kind.
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Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “Interesting, Jack. But just to reiterate, I think JS saw the SUPPRESSION of Platonic ideas as creating the loss of truth and not the addition.…”
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Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “In the intro to DC 76 in JS's 1838 history, JS said, "From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “"I’ve argued that God’s corporality isn’t that clear in the NT, so it seems to me that asserting that claims of God’s immateriality happened AFTER…”
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