Contributing poets read and discuss their work published in Fire in the Pasture: Twenty-first Centruy Mormon Poets. Tyler Chadwick, Neil Aitken, Karen Kelsay, Elisa Pulido’s Laura Stotts, Holly Welker
Speaker: Holly Welker
IMAGES OF THE DIVINE FEMININE
This session will begin with Margaret Toscano’s slide lecture of images of goddesses and women represented in pre-historic statues, contemporary paintings, and sculptures. Taken primarily from Western art, they show how our reality is shaped by the images we make and how our limited discourse about the Female God has also limited our access to …
HEAVENLY MOTHER AND THE LETTER OF THE LAW
President Hinckley has told us that Jesus Christ forbids our praying to Heavenly Mother. But heavenly parents who refuse communication with their children seem unworthy of their status as gods, and a mother who will not hear or acknowledge her children is not a helpful role model for Latterday Saints. Therefore, there must be some …
THE SWORD OF CHRIST: THE HUNGER GAMES AND THE PARABLES OF JUDGMENT
The parable is to human life what the mathematical equation is to the physical world. It abstracts certain features and enables us to see hidden realities. In her popular trilogy, The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins gives us a parable that reveals the hidden face of evil. This paper will compare The Hunger Games to Jesus’ …
MORMONS AND MORMONISM AS POLITICAL FARCE
“Mormon humor” is a concept that would startle many non-Mormons, but despite the warning in D&C 59:15 that “much laughter . . . is sin,” Mormons have long appreciated a good laugh. Simultaneously willing to laugh at themselves and sensitive to criticism, Mormons must answer the question: If you can’t laugh at a man claiming …
THE VAGINA TESTIMONIES
In 1996, Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues explored the role of female genitalia in female empowerment, individuality, and sense of self. Her later work evolved to address women’s body images and violence against women. A 2001 SUNSTONE session entitled “Sacred Spaces: Mormon Women’s Faith and Sexuality” and nicknamed “the Mormon Vagina Monologues” featured LDS …
One Of The Five Wise Virgins On A Date With The Prodigal Son
Sparks fly—sensual and spiritual collide, alluding to the forbidden, insinuating a route to the secret and the hidden in all of us, rallying the spirit. Love poetry can walk this line and do it openly and unashamedly, claiming our deepest affections, healing our contradictions, inducing us to laugh and cry at our fears. Come hear …
Craft, Creation, And Creed: Frivolity, Utility, And Spirituality
Working with and creating textiles has been women’s province for millennia, to the point that the matrilineal side of a family is known as the Holly Welker, Sara Burlingame, Obadiah Schwarzkopf, Rachel Mabey Whipple
Made-Up Missionaries, Fake Faith, & Concocted Conversions: The Alchemy Of The Book Of Mormon Musical
The Book of Mormon musical plays to sold-out audiences who leap to their feet for standing ovations as the show ends; the play has earned critical raves and won “Best Musical” in the 2011 Tonys. Whether “God loves Mormons and he wants some more,” as the lyrics to “Two by Two” declare, Broadway seems to …
Material Improvement: Explicit Statements On The Matter Of Heavenly Mother
The Spring 2011 issue of BYU Studies includes a “survey of historical teachings about Mother in Heaven” by David L. Paulsen and Martin Pulido entitled “‘A Mother There’: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven.” The article documents statements about Heavenly Mother by Mormon leaders and demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, Mormon …