Tradition and the LDS Talent
The quotation haunting any conversation of Mormon literature (whatever that may mean), is the Orson F. Whitney prophecy that “we shall yet have Shakespeares and Miltons of our own.” Now, that twelve hundred years of English literature—in all of its breadth, depth and richness—has scarcely produced one of each, let alone multiple, makes this a […]
Pharaoh Sanders’ The Creator Has a Master Plan, Alma 42:8, and Ether 12:6
The Great Plan of Happiness as an act of resistance.
On Heavenly Mother and Luce Irigaray, Briefly
So Elder Renlund recently gave the long-rumored talk on Heavenly Mother–and though overall his tone was perhaps softer and humbler than many feared it would be (certainly he didn’t repudiate the doctrine at least), he still firmly came down on the side of not praying to Her, as expected. It was a baffling rhetorical maneuver […]
Recognizing The Recognitions at Deseret Book
Early in William Gaddis’s sprawling 1955 debut novel The Recognitions, a gifted young artist named Wyatt is recruited by an unscrupulous art dealer to paint forgeries in the style of old Flemish Renaissance masters, and then pass them off as “lost” originals to wealthy art patrons. But the protagonist is such a dedicated artist, that […]
The Gospel of Matthew and Baudrillard’s Mirror of Production
In the Biblical Book of Matthew, we find described the sort of so-called “primitive” society that the French Philosopher Jean Baudrillard (of Simulation and Simulacra fame) outlined in his 1975 treatise The Mirror of Production. Christ’s is a proposed society that is focused not on the modern categories of production, surplus, and scarcity, but on […]
On Rhizomes, Deleuze and Guattari, and Eternal Families
The widespread practice of polygamy and polyandry among the 19th-century Saints is one of those thorny topics that no one in LDS studies can avoid for long. Far be it from me to attempt any sort of resolution of this incredibly fraught topic here. Rather, I’d only like to contribute just one additional wrinkle to […]