Posts Tagged ‘mormons’
Touchdown Jesus, Catholic Blessings, and Supporting Mormon Religion (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
[cross-posted at Juvenile Instructor]
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| Not even a Catholic blessing could save Manti Te'o and the dying pop-culture Mormon Moment he represents. |
Specifically, Stack drew readers' attention to the Mormon story embedded within a fuller exploration of that subject at the Wall Street Journal: Star linebacker, Heisman Trophy runner-up, and devout ...
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The Mormon Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
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Nobody Knows the Curses We’ve Seen (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
The Untold Story of Black Mormons: DVD
Last week, I officially received my invitation to the “Mormon moment.” It came from Margaret Blair Young, a creative writing teacher at Brigham Young University. Author, editor, and film creator of several works on African American Mormons, Young has been presenting a series at Patheos on black Mormons (another good one here) that has been simply marvelous. This weekend, as my fantasy football team soundly defeated the only non-religious historian in our league, I took the time to watch her co-directed and co-produced film Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black ...
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Mormons in the Media, 1830-2012 (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
This semester I am using Jared Farmer's wonderfully entertaining book On Zion's Mount for an M.A. class in the history of the American West. We've posted about that work previously, here and here. Religion Dispatches covered the work more extensively here. , and Juvenile Instructor (somewhat more critically) here.
As John Turner posted Sunday (just as I was writing this -- great minds think alike), Farmer has has spent the summer (unbeknownst to me) putting together this excellent e-book -- an illustrated e-book, is how I would describe it -- Mormons in the Media, ...
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Is John Turner’s Brigham Young Biography Better than Broadway’s The Book of Mormon? Pre-Pub Reviewers Think So! (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
Lots of wonderful pre-publication reviews of John Turner's Brigham Young biography: here's a sampling:
- "A scholarly yet thoroughly readable historical/biographical study, of considerable interest to students of 19th-century American history and religious revivalism." (Kirkus Reviews)
- "Turner's broad historical perspective clarifies why Young's ecclesiastical successors have still felt the man's influence--even after abandoning polygamy. An impressively detailed portrait of a controversial giant." --Bryce Christensen (Booklist (starred review)
- "Previous biographers of Brigham Young have used epithets such as "American Moses" and "Lion of the Lord." However, what Turner demonstrates here is that the three-dimensional Young ...
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The Mormon Moment Hits the New Yorker (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
Here's something you don't see every day: a sympathetic look at the history of Mormonism, drawing heavily from recent scholarship by contributors and friends of the blog, in the New Yorker. There's a bit of a weak connection with Mitt Romney's campaign at the end, and other issues that could be raised with this or that passage in the article, but I'm less interested in picking nits than highlighting Adam Gopnik's praise of and reliance on Matt Bowman's The Mormon People, John Turner's Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, Joanna Brooks's Book of Mormon Girl, ...
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Was Jesus Lily White? (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
While driving through the wilds of Texas a few months ago, I got into a conversation about why some conservatives hate Obama so much. I mentioned that the government was shedding jobs faster than the Bachelorette was dropping suitors. I said that taxes were the lowest they've been than throughout most of the twentieth century. I mentioned that Obamacare was initially the Republican counter to Hilary-care, a proposal that emerged from right-wing think takes. I even mentioned that Obama spoke about God more than any of his predecessors. What gives?
My conversant said, simply enough, it ...
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The Mormon Lens on American History (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
The Mormon moment srikes again! Jennifer Schuessler, "The Mormon Lens on American History," just posted online in the New York Times and published in Tuesday's paper, provides a very nice survey of the rapid rise of interest in the history of Mormonism as well as some of the major scholars covering it. The article features the experiences of our contributor John Turner, in researching his soon-to-be-published big biography of Brigham Young; mentions J. Spencer Fluhman's outstanding history of nineteenth-century anti-Mormonism which UNC Press is publishing in September, as well as Patrick Mason's recent volume which ...
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Pioneer Prophet (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
John Turner
If you will excuse the shameless self-promotion, I was recently pleased to learn that my forthcoming biography of Brigham Young is available for advance purchase. In fact, it was rather surreal to have it appear while I was poring over page proofs. Just in case it sells out quickly, reserve your copy of Pioneer Prophet now! I am joking, of course.
If anyone is interested in a preview, Harvard has put together a podcast about the book, available here.
If you assign it for a class (sorry it's not shorter -- Brigham Young had quite a ...
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Saturday’s Warriors and Mormon Correlation (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
Today's must-read for ya'll: Matt Bowman, "Saturday's Warriors: How Mormons Went from Beard-Wearing Radicals to Clean-Cut Conformists." Aside from covering the short-lived, cute-if-cringe-inducing history of "Mormon rap," the piece expertly details the origins of the policy of "correlation" in early twentieth-century progressivism's emphasis on efficiency and order, its translation in the world of the modern corporation, its usefulness in creating a church capable of handling growth and expansion, and the struggles to translate mid-century corporate correlation into a more contemporary idiom of pluralism and self-expression. A little excerpt:
Saturday’s Warrior—the title alludes to the latter ...
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Religion and Politics: New Online Journal Out Next Month (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
Paul Harvey
I'm pleased to let you all know about the much-anticipated online journal Religion and Politics, soon to be published digitally by the Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University at St. Louis. R. Marie Griffith, formerly of Princeton and Harvard, has taken up the task of heading the Center, joined on the faculty there by Leigh Schmidt. Tiffany Stanley and Max Mueller (who has blogged here before) are serving also as editors of the journal. The editorial board includes folks such as Jackson Lears, Mark Silk, Diane Winston, Robert Wuthnow, and others.
I have written ...
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Mormon Proxy Baptisms (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
As the fate of Mitt Romney (and, for those of us in Mormon History / Studies, yet another golden age of national attention surrounding all things Mormon) hangs in the balance, Mormon-Jewish relations have dominated religious news coverage over the past two weeks.
The Mormon practice of "proxy baptism" or "baptism for the dead" typically strikes outsiders as odd, but it offends some. For nearly twenty years, a variety of Jewish groups have complained about proxy baptisms done by Mormons on behalf of Holocaust victims, and the Catholic Church has also expressed concerns about the practice.
Many good ...
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Book of Mormon Girl Meets Review of Baptist Guy (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
What a pleasure it was this weekend to verytemporarily stop the endless rounds of academic duties – job searching, juking some assessment stats, grading (and then some), survey reporting, adinfinitum – and sink a little while into Joanna Brooks’s engaging memoir/warstories/reflections on her life, The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories from an American Faith. This came outelectronically originally, and has just been published in print.
Scholars will know Brooks as the author of thefield-defining work American Lazarus: Religion and the Rise of African-American and Native American Literature (Oxford University Press), as well as The Collected ...
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Diagnosing History (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
I'm pleased to host this guest post today from Samuel Brown, a physician, biomedical researcher, and (to boot) a talented historian, and author of the fascinating new study In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death (Oxford University Press, 2012). Below, he reflects on his work as a physician and a historian, and the nature of the "calling" of these two enterprises.
DiagnosingHistory
by Samuel Brown
When Istarted college in 1990, I was filled with excitement about scholarship in thehumanities. I particularly loved the idea of Classics, with its mix of ...Read the original post.
Book of Mormon Conference and Memoir (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
This weekend appears to be the Mormon moment for academics, with the conference at Columbia previously announced, and at Chez Harvey, as reports from the conference dovetailed with getting my hot-off-the-press copy of Joanna Brooks's Book of Mormon Girl (originally available on Kindle, now available for non-e-readers like me in actual book form). And that was preceded by last week's justified excoriation (amongst friends and colleagues online) of the ludicrously sophomoric review in the New York Times of Matt Bowman's also hot-off-the-press The Mormon People. (A quick aside to get it off my chest: Contrast Molly Worthen's ...
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Mormonism and American Politics Conference at Columbia University (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
Here's an incredible conference for those of you in the New York City area to consider attending this weekend -- with an all-star lineup presenting.
Mormonism and American Politics Conference
Click here for bios of the participants and abstracts of the presentations
Friday, February 3rd, 2012 to Saturday, February 4th, 2012, 9am-5pm; 9am-2pm
International Affairs Building, Room 1501
420 W 118th St. New York City
420 W 118th St. New York City
With a Mormon candidate for the presidency and the unprecedented media attention given to Mormons recently, this conference will take a broad view of the history of Mormon participation in American political life, from Joseph Smith’s ...
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Mormon Books in the Wall Street Journal (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
(cross-posted at Juvenile Instructor)
- Grant Hardy, ed., The Book of Mormon: A Reader's Edition (Oxford University Press, 2003)
- Richard Bushman, Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2008)
- Terryl Givens, The Viper on the ...
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The Origins of the Mormon Moment; or, How to Generate Your Own Such Moment (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
As a follow-up to Paul's post last week on "the Mormon moment in scholarship," and in an attempt to answer the questions posed by Elesha and Curtis in the comments of that post, I'll simply point readers to a post today ("2011: The Year of the Mormon") over at the Mormon blog By Common Consent. Embedded within that post, which surveys a number of individuals, events, and trends in pop culture, politics, sports, and scholarship that kept Mormonism in the spotlight all year long, is what appears to me to be a basic (if slightly complicated) formula ...
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The Mormon Moment in Scholarship (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
Everyone is discussing the "Mormon moment" thanks to Romney and national politics, and Max Mueller's piece for Religion Dispatches discusses why non-expert pontificators feel free to pontificate on Mormonism's "weirdness" where they would do no such thing about other religious traditions. Don't miss his article.
But it may actually be more the Mormon moment in the scholarly world than anywhere else. Our own John Turner's biography of Brigham Young will be out in a little over a year or so (and scroll down for John's recent post on Joseph Smith's Journals), with Harvard University Press, and the ...
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Robert Jeffress and the History of Anti-Mormonism (RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY)
An interesting history-related post from RELIGION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
Paul HarveyEarlier this year John Turner reviewed for our blog Patrick Mason's new book The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South, a book foreshadowed in an outstanding article in the Journal of Southern History.
Good time to be reminded of this again while Mitt Romney endures the latest round of this particular ugliness. Over at Religion Dispatches, Joanna Brooks interviews Mason, and the two discuss the various stages of anti-Mormonism in American history -- from violent vigilantism in the mid-19th century, to the adoption of the "cult" terminology in the 1960s and ...
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Nazi Germany & Adolf Hitler