BIOGRAPHERS AND THE MORMON “PROPHET PUZZLE”: 1974 TO 2004 It has been thirty-one years since Jan Shipps issued a challenge in her essay, “The Prophet Puzzle,” for writers to develop thorough portraits of Joseph Smith that show the “whole man.” This presentation examines the strengths and weaknesses of nine post-1974 biographies of the founding Mormon …
Event: Arizona Symposium 2006
CONSTRUCTING JOSEPH SMITH’S LIFE AND TIMES: A CONVERSATION
CONSTRUCTING JOSEPH SMITH’S LIFE AND TIMES: A CONVERSATION This presentation compares and contrasts two important works on Joseph Smith published within the past three months: Richard L. Bushman’s Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling and H. Michael Marquardt’s The Rise of Mormonism, 1816-1844. The latter work, while not a biography, focuses on Smith and the controversies …
ARE MORMONS POLYTHEISTS?
ARE MORMONS POLYTHEISTS? A common feature of academic scholarship written on Mormonism has been to highlight its unique theology in which God the Father not only possesses a physical body but we, as his children, have the potential to progress and become as he is: Gods and Goddesses. Some of these scholars have used this …
A PORTER OF PAIN AND PROGRESS
A PORTER OF PAIN AND PROGRESS This study examines the interplay between fantasy and revelation as interpretive practices in the most influential American fantasia in recent memory, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Very little Angels scholarship has focused on religion and, in particular, the play’s engagement with revelation in a Mormon context. This presentation seeks …