The publication of Martha Beck’s Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith, has generated intense controversy and conflict, not only for its treatment of Mormonism, but also regarding issues of consistency, disclosure, memory reliability, and the intersection between personal integrity and faith. This panel composed of LDS and non-LDS feminists …
Speaker: Laura Bush
‘They Have Their Place’: Race And Identity In The Mormon Church
Through interrogating stories told by white Latter-day Saints to explain racial difference and justify subordinating and excluding people of color from full participation in the Church, this panel seeks to understand the past and present “place” of people of color in Mormonism, including how minority members and converts were and are viewed, understood, conceptualized, and …
LOVE AND HATE IN THE DESERT SOUTHWEST: TEACHING MORMONISM ON THE FRONT LINES
The academic study of Mormonism in the public university continues to generate interest, particularly among historians, scholars of religion, and many Latter-day Saints with academic training. This discussion focuses on the development and delivery of an “issues in Mormonism” course over a two semester period at Arizona State University. Using examples from classroom presentations, journal …
FROM BUNKERVILLE TO BABYLON: JUANITA BROOKS AND PHYLLIS BARBER TELL THE STORY OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY MORMON WOMEN’S SEXUAL TRAINING
Juanita Brooks (Quicksand and Cactus: A Memoir of the Southern Mormon Frontier), and Phyllis Barber (How I Got Cultured: A Nevada Memoir) reconstruct Mormon women’s sexual training during the mid- to late-twentieth century by narrating the story of their lives growing up in Nevada. Each autobiography illustrates the strained position of many Mormon women as …