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    Archive for the 'Criticism' Category

    The Missionary Christmas

    12.26.08

    I recently prepared a Christmas package for my missionary son and hit upon the idea of searching past Ensign magazines for missionary Christmas stories to add to the package. I’m not sure if these stories are typical of other missionary Christmas stories, but I can say that the stories I found included two broad themes: [...]

    Failed metaphors of failure

    12.22.08

    After looking back at some of the embarrassing language I use in my review of Irreantum 9.2/10.1 — words like “trinket” and “cul-de-sacs of meaning” — it occurs to me that I should just get all these failed metaphors of the failure of Mormon letters out of my system now so I won’t plaque you [...]

    Mormon Fine Art and Graven Images

    12.08.08

    (this is the first in a series of six posts on the Pillars of Mormon Art)

    …thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
    (Exodus 20:4)
    This little verse has [...]

    Pillars of Mormon Art

    12.05.08

    Six Theological Pillars for the Art of God’s People
    Now, if that’s not a daunting title, I don’t know what is. It was enough to pique my curiosity, though, and I left work early on Friday, November 7th to attend Vern Swanson’s thusly-named presentation at the Biennial Art, Belief, Meaning Symposium, Picturing the Divine, at the [...]

    Theric guest post: “Mormons might well be the new Catholics!”

    11.25.08

    Wm says: Hey look — it’s time for another guest post from Theric. Thanks, man. I was going to subject everyone to the playlist of insufferably indie-pop songs I write most of my fiction to.
    .
    In DavidEdelstein’s NPR review of the movie inspired by that ubiquitous book by “Brigham University graduate Stephenie Meyer,” he describes [...]

    OSC’s heirs: The Runelords and Mistborn series

    11.14.08

    If you are the type of reader who enjoys the Mormon-tinged/themed elements in the speculative fiction of Orson Scott Card, the best two post-OSC series to read right now are David Farland’s Runelords quartet* and Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy.
    I would love to read some in-depth explorations of both of these works (and maybe even write [...]

    If you can “Queer” a book can you “Mormon” a book?

    11.11.08

    Thanks to the recent mention of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the last conference I pulled out my old script. See, I got to play in Emily in our high school’s production and it was a transformative experience for me. When I first read the script I was blown away by Wilder’s wisdom, especially in [...]

    The Golden Citations

    10.24.08

    When I was a youth, the Church encouraged us as members to engage our friends in conversation about the Church using the Golden Questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? and Where am I going to? My father even had a lapel pin for his suit that was in the shape of a [...]