Some poets are available for Mormon appropriation and some are only to be envied and enjoyed. John Donne is only to be envied and enjoyed.
Author: Nate Oman
I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah (autobiographical blogging here), and attended Brigham Young University from 1993 to 1999. Between 1994 and 1996, I served in the Korea Pusan Mission. While at BYU, I mainly studied political science and philosophy. (I was lucky enough to take several classes from T&S's Jim Faulconer.) I also took just enough economics to get myself in trouble. After graduation, I married the fabulous and incredible Heather Bennett (now Oman) and worked on Capitol Hill for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) while Heather finished graduate school at George Washington University. Beginning in 2000, I attended Harvard Law School, escaping with my JD in June, 2003. After practicing law for awhile, I became a law professor at William & Mary Law School. Somewhere along the line, Heather and I managed to have a son and a daughter.
The Problems of Mormon-American Toryism
Being an American Mormon makes it difficult, perhaps impossible, for me to be a tory.
From the Archives: A Mormon Studies Family
Both of my parents (now divorced) have been deeply involved in Mormon studies for my entire life. (more…)
Dallin, Sandra and the Supreme Court
Sandra Day O’Connor has retired from the Supreme Court and John Roberts will almost certainly replace her. History might have been different.
“Why Universal Love is Creepy,” or “Thoughts on Disliking my Investigators”
I find the universal love of mankind a little creepy.
Complicity and Consequences
I know some people who assiduously avoid buying Nike shoes. The moral logic of this position, however, is tricky.
DC Get Together Tomorrow
If you are interested, email [email protected].
An Open Letter to the Dialogue Board
August 11, 2005 To Whom It May Concern: I hope that you will not find an unsolicited letter presumptuous, but I wanted to give you my thoughts on what I see as Dialogue’s problems and some things it could do to improve.
DC Get Together Reminder
This Saturday at 5pm in Springfield, Virginia. If you are interested in coming, please email me at [email protected]. I will send details and directions via email.
Dating, Jane Austen, and the Virtues of Chastity
Like most rugged and red-blooded American men I have long enjoyed the work of Jane Austen.
Manners, Race, and Respect
I have always thought that one of the most telling and subtlety vicious aspect of segregation was the fact that a white person regardless of age or economic status could always call a black person, regardless of age or economic status, “boy” or “girl.”
From the Archives: Mormon Lawyers
Despite Brigham’s frequent attacks on the profession, there are a lot of Mormon lawyers. Some LDS thinkers have posited all sorts of troubling reasons why this is so. Nibley sees it as a symptom of moral decline, and I have repeatedly seen it used as evidence of excessive Mormon materialism or anti-intellectualism. However, today I realized that it might be about something else entirely: book binding. (more…)
Lincoln on Blood Atonement
Today on my way to work, I passed by the Lincoln Memorial where the great man’s sermon on blood atonement is inscribed in marble.
DC Get Together
Bloggernaclites! For those in the Washington, D.C. area there is going to be a get together at Casa Oman (sans, alas, Heather and Jacob, the more interesting Omans) on Saturday, August 13th beginning at about 5pm-ish. It will be a bring your own food kind of BBQ. I will provide watermelon, drinks, and fresh salsa from the Oman garden. If you are interested in attending, please email me at [email protected]. I will send out an email with directions. UPDATE: I have changed the email address to a functional account. Sorry to anyone who tried to send an email to the previous account. Please resend. UPDATE II: OK, so that one didn’t work either. Please resend to [email protected].
On the Possibilities of Kitsch
OK. I don’t want to go to film school any more.
I Want to Go to Film School
My wonderful wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed, as left me.
Persecuted Mormons and Market Definitions
OK, lets talk about antitrust law and the plight of persecuted Mormons.
Boris and Brigham
I don’t often read novels, but after making it through the most recent Harry Potter, I thought I would try slumming it in fiction for awhile.
Who Reads This Thing?
Among my other glories, I am an assistant ward clerk.
Living in the Opinions of Others
I have a confession: I don’t much care about what the people in my ward think about me. I feel guilty about this.
History, Objectivity, and Stalin’s Toes
In times past, Mormon intellectualdom has been much exercised over the issue of objectivity and the writing of history. By and large, I think that these debates have focused on the wrong issues. Stalin’s toes help to illustrate one of the reasons why.
My School
I did not want to go to BYU.
John Roberts and Mormon Theology
For those who haven’t noticed, John Roberts has been nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. The next obvious question is what does his jurisprudence tell us about Mormon theology.
Three Generations of Mormon Legal History
Okay, it is time for another post on Mormon legal history. This one is on the state of the field and where we go from here.
How Reed Smoot Restored what Winston Churchill had Preserved
It is hard not to admire Winston Churchill.
Endocannibalism in Sacrament Meeting
Cannibalism, it seems to me, is one of the unspoken issues that lurks beneath all Mormon sacrament meetings.
Temple Worship and the Retreat of Esoteric Space
In a comment on Gordon’s recent post, Jed Woodworth raises an interesting point. He, entirely accurately, points out that the notion that the temple is a place that most members should regularly attend is a late 20th century phenomena in Mormonism. Prior to that time, the temple, for most members, was generally a place visited once or twice in a life time, and work for the dead was largely delegated to specially called temple workers. Indeed, during the 1930s, Heber J. Grant actually hired people to do temple work on behalf of his ancestors as a kind of make-work project. Yet I think that Jed misses something in his account of the shift away from this rather modest role for individual temple worship to our contemporary emphasis.
The First Mormon Justice
It occurs to me that there is a politically well-connected Mormon who is eminently qualified to take Justice O’Connor’s slot on the Supreme Court. (And no, I don’t mean Orrin Hatch.)
The Great Liberal Death Wish?
Here is an empirical question that I don’t really know the answer to:
Ed Firmage’s Apostasy and the Age of Mormonism
Ed Firmage, for many years the token Mormon at the U of U law school, is an interesting apostate.