Mr. Bojangles
April 27, 2018Bojangles so much burdens me
With his memory
That I am often caught, mid syllable,
As he stitches back the grey fields of my brain—
DiaBLOGue
Three Loyalties in Religion
April 27, 2018Being religious can mean many different things—like going to church, reading scripture, believing in God, keeping the commandments. In fact religion embraces so much that one needs to cast his own religious beliefs and feelings…
Phrenology Among the Mormons
April 27, 2018On 2 July 1842 the Nauvoo Wasp contained a letter from A. Crane, M.S., professor of phrenology, alluding to the “large number of persons in different places” who wished to know “the phrenological development of…
Some Reflections on the New Mormon History
April 27, 2018In the last quarter-century a significantly different understanding of the Latter day Saint past has begun to emerge in a series of books, journal articles, oral ad dresses at various conferences, and more informally, in…
Riding Herd: A Conversation with Juanita Brooks
April 27, 2018Elsewhere in this issue Robert Flanders speaks of the New Mormon History as having begun in 1945 with the publication of Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History. While Brodie’s book is certainly pivotal, an…
Among the Mormons: A Survey of Current Literature
April 27, 2018If we accept the value Ms. Arbuthnot places upon books, the Mormon community is indeed rich. The editor of this column never ceases to be amazed by the quantity (and increasingly the quality) of books and periodicals directed at the Mormon audience. Among the new entrants, of which most of Dialogue’s subscribers should have received a sample issue, is Exponent II, published by Mormon Sister, Inc. of Arlington, Massachusetts. Exponent II is “A quarterly newspaper concerning Mormon women, published by Mormon Women, and of interest to Mormon women and others.”
Sisters Under the Skin | S. George Ellsworth, Dear Ellen: Two Mormon Women and Their Letters
April 27, 2018Ellen Spencer and Ellen Pratt were born in 1832 and moved to Nauvoo in 1841, where they became close friends. They both crossed the plains in the emigration of 1848 without their fathers. Orson Spencer…
Acting Under Orders | Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View
April 27, 2018What do we do when we have agreed to participate in an experiment under the auspices of a prestigious university (and are getting paid for it) and we are asked to do something objectionable? The…
“No Continuing City””: Reading a Local History | Marilyn McMeen Miller and John Clifton Moffitt, Provo: A Story of People in Motion
April 27, 2018In its almost-square format, in its design and layout, its good-sized type and sepia toned pictures on stiff, just about grocery-bag-brown paper, Miller and Moffitt’s Provo is easily the most attractive and readable work of local history I have come across.
Counseling the Brethren
April 27, 2018The scent of shaving lotion startled me. It was like finding a “No Trespassing” sign in some familiar patch of woods. I’d walked through that door a hundred times, would teach Sunday School in the…