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Volume 53, No. 2

Summer 2020

The Summer 2020 Issue begins with an article from Lawrence Foster on "Why the Prophet is a Puzzle," and includes some lovely Personal Voices essays including a personal essay by Blaire Ostler called "Hug a Queer Latter-day Saint." Also includes poetry by R.A. Christmas and finishes with a sermon on the "Second Coming" by Kim McCall.

  • Topics
  • queer,josephsmith,history,photography

Contents

Articles/Essays

Why the Prophet is a Puzzle: The Challenges of Using Psychological Perspectives to Understand the Character and Motivation of Joseph Smith, Jr.



Dialogue 53.2 (Summer 2020): 1–35
This article will explore how one of the most open-ended psychological interpretations of Smith’s prophetic leadership and motivation might contribute to better understanding the trajectory of this extraordinarily talented and conflicted individual whose life has so deeply impacted the religious movement he founded and, increasingly, the larger world.



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Fiction

Certain Places



He folds his sash, his apron, his robe. Stacks them on the cold laminate counter. Places the cap on top. Slides the sacred items into the white cotton envelope. The fabric is thin and the…



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Personal Voices

Ace of Saints



Dialogue 53.2 (Summer 2020): 108–123
I felt free. I felt empowered. I might fall in love and get married, or
I might not. Either way would be fine. I didn’t need to have the same
life path as all of my friends and family. I realized that I am the way I
am, and I couldn’t change it. I needed to respect it. I had to listen to
myself, and not to everyone around me, including Church leaders. I
had to follow my heart and do what makes me happy, and it would all
get figured out in the end.



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Hug a Queer Latter-day Saint



Dialogue 53.2 (Summer 2020): 33–44
“Queer Polygamy,” is an innovating mashup that looks beyond monogamy as the only authorizing type of same-sex relationships—it really pushes the boundaries of what queer scholarship had done. Drawing on contemporary polyamory to critique the limitations of heterosexual monogamy, and putting that into conversation with the LDS tradition of plural marriage, Ostler imagines a new type of polygamy, queer polygamy, that sheds the patriarchal baggage of the 19th century version and its continuation in fundamentalist Mormonism, as well as thinking beyond its presumed heterosexulity.



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Sermon

Volume Art