Saskia Tielens

Mees Tielens, then Saskia Tielens {[email protected]} studied American Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and the University of California at Berkeley, and theology at the Catholic University Tilburg in the Netherlands. She earned an MA in American Studies in 2010 and is now a PhD candidate at the Ruhrcenter of American Studies in Dortmund, Germany, where she is finishing her dissertation about Mormon cultural memory in a transnational context. Her research interests include religion and American culture, digital culture, memory, and gender. Saskia has been the recipient of a variety of grants and fellowships, including the Eccles Mormon Studies fellowship at the Tanner Humanities Center (University of Utah) in 2013–2014.

Mormon Scholars Foundation Summer Fellowship Conference | The Gold Plates in the Contemporary Popular Imagination

Articles/Essays – Volume 45, No. 3

The gold plates occupy an interesting place in Mormon culture. Although they are an essential part of the Mormon foundational narrative, the plates have a peripheral place in Mormons’ ordinary discourse. Take, for example, the 1989 Primary songbook.According to the index, there are sixteen songs about being reverent in church, and an additional three concerned with the need for quiet. In contrast, only two explicitly deal with the gold plates. And when one thinks about Mormon material culture, sacred garments and temple art come more readily to mind than the plates. Yet in this paper I argue that the gold plates are actually prime examples of Mormon material culture, and that, in fact, the practice of invoking the gold plates in the popular imagination shapes and reflects Mormon culture in significant ways.

Guilty as Charged? | Mormonism in Nazi Germany David Conley Nelson, Moroni and the Swastika: Mormons in Nazi Germany

Articles/Essays – Volume 48, No. 3

Moroni and the Swastika arose, in part, as a response to a query put to the author about the persecution of Mormons in the Third Reich. David Conley Nelson describes how his stepson, raised on the stories of Mormon persecution and Latter-day Saints’ willingness to endure much for the sake of the gospel, made the inference that Mormons must have been among the victims of Nazi Germany. This query led to a research paper, a presentation at the Mormon History Association’s annual meeting, and ultimately a doctoral dissertation and a book.