Ten years ago, my article “Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology” was published in Dialogue.[1] I did not know what to expect when it made its way into the world, but it ended up being a…
The Spring 2012 Issue opens with a feisty stack of letters to Dialogue before delving into Shawn Tucker’s exploration of Mormonism’s contribution to the “Virtues and Vices” tradition in various religious and philosophical schools of thought. Then John Bennion contributes a tribute to his ancestor Lucile Cannon Bennion and Gary Bergera examines the cases of two “liberal” professors at BYU during the Wilkinson years, offering new insight into Wilkinson’s modes of thought and management. Other highlights include poetry by Elizabeth Willes, creative nonfiction by A Motley Vision’s William Morris, an Easter homily and a Mother’s Day sermon you will actually like (really!).
As the year comes to a close, Dialogue has fashioned a $5.00 fundraising flurry and invites you to join in. Donating just $5.00 will not only help Dialogue in its quest to continue to be one of the most integral, insightful, and intellectual Mormon journals available, but will also enter you into a drawing for one of four signed copies from these friends of Dialogue (click “Read more” to find out which authors are participating). Drawing will be held January 4th and winners notified soon thereafter.
Cross-posted at the Maxwell Institute Blog by BHodges:
What is Mormon studies? Who is doing it? Where and how is it being done? What is the relationship between Mormon studies and apologetics? Does Mormon studies exclude or necessarily bracket discussion about the fundamental truth claims of the religion? How is Mormon studies to be situated within the wider academy? I’ve been busy compiling a bibliography of publications that tackle these types of questions. There are fewer published articles that directly address such questions than I expected. Some of the most interesting discussions have occurred in the Bloggernacle—a loose and unaffiliated collection of Mormon-themed blogs. I have gathered some of my favorite online discussions into a bibliographic essay on the sorts of issues being discussed in relation to Mormon studies. Many of the posts scope wider than the category in which I place them, and inclusion in this collection does not signal my agreement.
Title: Habits of Being: Mormon Women’s Material Culture
Editor: Elizabeth Pinborough
Publisher: Exponent II
Genre: Personal Essays
Year: 2012
Pages: 113
Binding: Softcover
Price: Sold Out
By Emily Jensen
Reading underneath my great-grandmother Florence Shepherd Warburton’s pastel paintings in the old rock Warburton home in the tiny town of Grouse Creek, Utah, I connected with Habits of Being—this book of personal essays from women looking longingly at ancestral artifacts for links to those women, some known, some unknown, who came before.
It was a glorious experience, made even more poignant by the fact that it was Memorial Day, one that made me want to write my own essays about my own ancestors, about the women and men who furnished, occupied, and beautified the very surroundings in which I sat. And if there is anything I wish to impart in this review, it’s the need for women and men to search out connections to their past and write them up, then archive them safely. In fact I’ll bold that part, just in case that’s the only sentence you read.
Title: The Book of Mormon: A Biography
Editor: Paul C. Gutjahr
Reviewed by Blair Hodges
The Book of Mormon, that curious text said to be dug from a hill in upstate New York and translated by the gift and power of God, has been reincarnated over its 180-plus year lifespan into an interesting variety of bodies: from its various print editions, to films in silent black-and-white and full color, as children’s editions and comic books, even inspiring an award-winning Broadway musical. It’s spawned paintings, cartoon show episodes, and action figures. Since its birth in 1830 the Book of Mormon has been argued over and analyzed in print—approaches ranging from polemical to academic and any mix of the two. Most significantly, it has served as a key religious devotional text within the still-growing branches of Mormonism, the most prominent being the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has shepherded the text through translation into 109 world languages from Afrikaans to Zulu, with more on the way.1 All of this and other interesting elements of its impressive life are explored in Paul C. Gutjahr’s The Book of Mormon: A Biography, part of Princeton University Press’s impressive new “Lives of Great Religious Books” series—handsome little clothbound volumes short enough to get through in one or two sittings.
Happy Holidays from Dialogue Journal!
As a special advent-themed treat, Dialoguejournal.com will be featuring holiday-flavored offerings from it’s archives leading up to Christmas Day.
Today’s offering: “A Child’s Christmas in Utah” a story by Wayne Carver
Here’s a taste:
“Overhead the attic creaks as the old house sways a little in the winter chill that comes down on a black wind from the black mountains to the east and moves through the valley and across the salt lake and into all the years to come — but that cannot touch the bed-covering warmth of a Christmas that is past.”
Click to see all the 2012 Christmas countdown features.
Happy Holidays from Dialogue Journal!
As a special advent-themed treat, Dialoguejournal.com will be featuring holiday-flavored offerings from it’s archives leading up to Christmas Day.
Today’s offering: “A Child’s Christmas in Utah” a story by Wayne Carver
Here’s a taste:
“Overhead the attic creaks as the old house sways a little in the winter chill that comes down on a black wind from the black mountains to the east and moves through the valley and across the salt lake and into all the years to come — but that cannot touch the bed-covering warmth of a Christmas that is past.”
Click to see all the 2012 Christmas countdown features.
Happy Holidays from Dialogue Journal!
As a special advent-themed treat, Dialoguejournal.com will be featuring holiday-flavored offerings from it’s archives leading up to Christmas Day.
Today’s offering: “Christmas Morning—1906” a personal essay by Aldyth Morris
Here’s a taste:
“Winter of 1906 came late to Logan, Utah, the small Rocky Mountain town where I grew up. The mild autumn weather had held through Thanksgiving, but next day large feathery flakes began to fall and continued, silent and relentless, for days. When at last they stopped, volunteers turned out to clear the sidewalks, leaving snow banks so high that when Bishop Newbold passed on his way to the Fourth Ward meeting house all I could see from our parlor window was the tip of his black hat.”
Click to see all the 2012 Christmas countdown features.
Happy Holidays from Dialogue Journal!
As a special advent-themed treat, Dialoguejournal.com will be featuring holiday-flavored offerings from it’s archives leading up to Christmas Day.
Today’s offering: “Christmas in Central Park” a photographic card by Kah Leong Poon
Click to see all the 2012 Christmas countdown features.