In honor of Women’s History Month, I’d like to reopen our occasional series of Essential Texts in Mormon Studies. Traditionally, posts in the series have asked commenters to suggest their top five books within some segment of Mormon studies. For this post, let’s discuss what might be the essential texts in Mormon feminism.
Author: Kaimi Wenger
Kaimi is a fellow who blogs every now and again, usually when he should be working.
An Answered Prayer?
I stood at the bus stop, thinking about my music homework.
Sun and Stone
For some of us, lapsed subscriptions are a way of life. The parade of reminder cards, the inevitable gaps in coverage — they are as familiar as morning and evening. On rare occasions, this trait leads to vistas the zealously up-to-date subscriber will never see.
The other Heavenly Mother hymn
Common knowledge holds that Eliza’s poetic lines in O My Father are the only spot that the Heavenly Mother doctrine broke through into mainstream Mormon discourse; that the radical doctrine, taught by Joseph Smith, was preserved only through the valiant efforts of the poetess; that no one else really thought it necessary to celebrate the concept. Common knowledge is wrong.
All callings are good
The ones that you love — well, you love them. And the ones that you hate? They exist to make you stronger. They may be a test. Or, you may be there to help others. Therefore, all callings are good.
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the stars have nests
We’ve been happy to have P. Anderson, a.k.a. Starfoxy, as a guest blogger. As expected, her posts were always interesting. You can find a list of her guest posts (at many bloggernacle sites) on her blog, here. And I expect we’ll see her around the nacle, with her usual thoughtful comments. Thanks for being our guest, Starfoxy!
Rediscovering treasures
After we got the DVD player, the videos slowly fell out of circulation. They had no special features, no subtitles — and they required rewinding! Some were a bit worn, too — particularly the kids videos. So we were all too happy to make the switch, becoming a DVD household. Natural pack-rat tendencies meant that the videos didn’t get truly tossed — they just got put into a box. Meanwhile, new movie purchases for the past several years — Cars and Monsters Inc. and Batman Begins and whatnot — have been on DVD.
Romney II: The Story Continues
T&S reader and political junkie Marc Bohn is often the first to notice any new Romney material. There were a slew of articles this weekend that discussed Romney and Mormonism, covering all sorts of interesting ground, and Marc has put together this synopsis, with links, of several of the most interesting:
I Hate Podcasts
I tend to find podcasts highly annoying. This is for several reasons.
The Schedule
I always love teaching lessons in Priesthood, but I was particularly excited to see the upcoming schedule. The schedule sets aside the 4th week of each month for a general conference talk selected by the Bishop or Stake President, as usual, with the selected talk providing the lesson in both Priesthood and Relief Society meetings. The upcoming slate looks like this:
Cross Roads
Last year, my wife and I began looking for a good pre-school for our four year old daughter. We looked into a number of different options, weighing the benefits of different programs. Ultimately, we decided to enroll her in a nearby private preschool that is operated by the local Grace Brethren Church, a Protestant denomination.
Joseph Smith Legal Trials (Missouri Period and Missouri Extradition attempts) at Miller-Eccles
This weekend, Morris Thurston will present on Joseph Smith’s legal trials, at the Miller-Eccles group meeting here in California.
Star Fox Adventures
Our latest guest blogger is not quite a video-game character, but she’s probably the next best thing. She’s the blogger P. Anderson — also known as Starfoxy (and occasionally as Andermom) — and she has the following to say about herself:
Academic search for Mormon Studies chair at Claremont
The following comes via the search committee for the Howard W. Hunter Chair in Mormon Studies at the Claremont Graduate University School of Religion: The Claremont Graduate University School of Religion is soliciting qualified applicants to fill the newly-created Howard W. Hunter Chair in Mormon Studies.
Kolob
Some fellow who has clearly never talked to a Mormon gives a nice (mis)summation of LDS beliefs in a local paper. (Hat tip: Voldemort). Like many such, he has things to say about Kolob — a lot more, really, than I’ve ever heard at church. Is Kolob even really part of LDS doctrine any more?
Words and Music
Here’s a short quiz, for fun: For each of the following, name the modern-day green-book hymn whose tune was originally associated with these lyrics. 1. To Anacreon in Heav’n, where he sat in full glee, a few Sons of Harmony sent a petition,
“For this [blog] was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”
It appears that the reported demise of the Millennial Star blog may have been premature. The blog appears to be alive once more.
Grace shall be, as your day
I was well into my twenties before I finally deciphered one particular line from I Need Thee Every Hour. It was a line that I had certainly sung a hundred times or more: “No tender voice like thine can peace afford.”
Mice and men
If we’ve learned one thing in the past week, it is this: Mice are not good Mormons.
Blog-Post Bingo (or Tic-Tac-Toe)
Start with a three-by-three grid.
Choosing Joy
The Brazilian musical Orfeu Negro, a capoeira-filled retelling of the Orpheus story, contains a beautiful and haunting stanza penned by Antonio Carlos Jobim and sung to a heartbreaking tune: Tristeza não tem fim, felicidade sim. Happiness ends, but sadness lasts forever.
Around the Blogs: Life
The premise for the new Day in the Life series at Feminist Mormon Housewives is simple: Selected contributors (guests and regulars) write about their daily routines. The beauty comes from seeing how a series of diverse and differently situated women negotiate the often mundane challenges of life and of lived Mormonism. Kudos to Lisa and her cohorts for putting together this series, and to the participants for the bravery and frankness that allows us to peek into their routines and see pieces of our own lives — fears, joys, burdens, hopes — mirrored back at us.
They will never forget you ’til somebody new comes along
Some of our readers may have felt like this cartoon when Dave Landrith’s last blog met a(n un?)timely demise. Fortunately for those readers, Dave has now made like this cartoon — the resemblance is uncanny, really — and started a new party blog. Fellow inmates travelers include a random John, John F., annegb, danithew, and Proud Daughter of Eve. The blog’s tagline suggests that it is written by peculiar people; truer words, I am relatively sure, were never spoken. Also, it looks really spiffy. Welcome (back) the bloggernacle, folks!
Thanks, Seraphine
It’s been great to have Seraphine as a guest blogger these past few weeks. Her posts have covered a variety of topics and have never been uninteresting; I suspect that her posts on feminism will continue to draw readers and commenters for some time to come. (All of Seraphine’s T&S posts are available here.) For now, though, Seraphine returns to the garden from whence we borrowed her, the always-interesting Zelophehad’s Daughters; readers who enjoyed Seraphine’s posts here are advised to look for more over at ZD.
Anticipations
A seminary teacher once told me: Before conference, write down a question you need answered. Think carefully, ponder and pray about what the question should be. When you have your question, write it down on paper. Pray that an answer will be given in conference. Then, as you listen to conference, listen for your answer. What (if you don’t mind sharing) will you be listening for, this conference?
Around the blogs
-Feminist Mormon Housewives runs not-one, but-two recent posts on how to answer questions and return to the church from inactivity. (Because feminists really want to undermine the church and all that.) -You already knew that Family History Centers were good for filling in dates on charts. (As in, “what’s the birth date of my great-grandfather?”) Bookslinger finds that they’re useful for getting another kind of date. Really! (Dating via genealogy centers — what are they going to think of next, baptism for the dead?) -Finally, don’t miss Eve’s poignant and thoughtful post about seeking for happiness in a “secondary” choice of education, after run-ins with the dreaded I-word — infertility. -Also: Mogget continues to blogget about Jesus’s death in Mark; Roasted Tomatoes proposes a thought expermiment about women and priesthood; some-other-blog introduces fall colors and a newly-poached sidebar feature (and they’re starting off on the right note; if you’re going to poach, I say, then poach well).
Jill Mulvay Derr on Eliza R. Snow (Smith)
This past Friday, my wife and I (and many other folks) had the privilege of hearing Jill Mulvay Derr speak to the Miller-Eccles study group about Eliza R. Snow Smith. The presentation was great.
Welcome, Seraphine
I’m happy to announce our latest guest blogger, a bloggernacle regular who currently posts mostly under the pseudonym Seraphine. And just who is Seraphine?
Five
Five years after September 11, 2001; five links in memory:
September Ensign
The September Ensign rocks. No two ways about it.