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Archive for the 'Commentary' Category

Mormon Literature for Thanksgiving

11.24.11

In August, Scott Hales suggested (and he is not the first) that popularizing Mormon Literature might come from flooding the bloggernacle with posts. I like the idea.
But I think there are many hurdles to this idea–principally because even those writing about Mormon literature don’t really know much of the literature. We talk about a few [...]

The Nephite Conspiracy:
Mormon elements in James Rollins’s The Devil Colony

11.15.11

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Let me start by admitting that I pretty much hated this book. Let’s just get it out there so we won’t have to keep talking about it. I hated the flat characters, the adrenaline-pimping pacing, the absurd science, the conspiracy theories within conspiracy theories, the Illuminati/Cobra badguys, the kitchen-sink idea inclusiveness, the audience pandering, the [...]

Why Mormon culture is important to the future of Mormonism

11.02.11

Because of the current socio-cultural situation for Mormon Americans, culture is important to the future of Mormonism, especially when it comes to our youth.

Evidences of uneasy assimilation

9.29.11

Wm uses recent podcasts with Elna Baker and Brandon Sanderson to discuss assimilated-ness and uneasiness when it comes to Mormons and Mormonism.

Banned Books Week

9.28.11

Saturday began the ALA’s annual Banned Books Week, its effort to call attention to censorship and attempts to censor books in the United States. The good news is that the number of challenges (attempts, usually unsuccessful, to restrict or make a book unavailable at an institution–library, school, etc.) has hit its lowest level in 20 [...]

Responding to bigoted but famous texts

6.29.11

From time to time I see news items about attempts to remove a book from a school libraries and classrooms. The reasons are even appealing at times. One text is bigoted against African-Americans. Another against Asians. But more often the reasons are less appealing (at least to me): Harry Potter is attacked for teaching about [...]

It’s fun to see the Mormons at the zoo

6.06.11

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I realized the other day when I heard the last five minutes of Terry Gross’s interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone about their musical The Book of Mormon that for all the times I’ve listened to Fresh Air, for all the interviews about Big Love and Angels in America and such, the closest she’s [...]

Cultural Events Now, Culture for the Future

2.18.11

Last August at the LDS Church archives I came across an LDS Public Affairs file about the Primeira Salão Nacional de Artistas Mórmons1 (First National Salon of Mormon Artists), held February 22-26, 1983 in São Paulo, Brazil. The event, which was sponsored by the Church Educational System in Brazil, sought works by LDS visual artists [...]