Department of
Anthropology College of Arts & Sciences The University of Alabama
"THE
ANTHROPOLOGY OF MORMONISM"
listed
as
Special Topics in the Anthropology of Religion
ANT 450
Dr.
Charles W. Nuckolls
Professor,
Department of Anthropology
telephone:
348-8202
email: balaji@ouraynet.com
webpage: http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/nuckolls.htm
With
few exceptions, Mormonism remains little studied by anthropologists – a
surprising fact, given that the Church already has eleven million members and
is growing at 30 percent per decade. If
the trend continues, Mormons might number 260 million by the year 2080, making
Mormonism “the first new world religion since the Prophet Mohammed rode out
of the desert” (Stark 1998: 30.) The chance to study a new world religion in
the making is rare, to say the least. The
primary purpose of this course, therefore, is to ask the question “what
would an anthropology of Mormonism look like” and then to examine particular
issues, such as kinship and social organization; sexuality and social control;
culture and the individual.
"The
Anthropology of Mormonism" explores the possibility of a serious
intellectual analysis of Mormonism using accepted methods and concepts of
social‑cultural anthropology. The course exists to evaluate what professional
anthropologists have said about Mormonism more than to conclude ultimately
what Mormonism "is." It short, we will engage a dialogue between
traditional academic anthropology and traditional Mormonism in view of
enlightening an understanding of both.
This
not a lecture course. It is a discussion course, and the students who join must
expect to participate fully and completely.
All students are responsible each week for all the assigned readings.
Each week, a group of students will be given the task of presenting the
readings – that is, of leading the discussion and asking questions for the
class as a whole to address.
A
final paper will be required, and is due on the last day of class. In addition, students will present brief overviews of their papers in
class, probably in the last two weeks of the semester. Group projects are
permitted.
Required
Books:
-
Ostling,
R. and Ostling, J. Mormon
America : The Power and the Promise.
San Francisco:HarperCollins, 1999.
-
Newell,
Coke Latter Days : An Insider's Guide to
Mormonism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Griffin Trade Paperback, 2001.
-
Book
of Mormon,
Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of
Great Price
-
Eliason,
E. Mormons
and Mormonism: In
Introduction to an American World Religion.
Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 2001.
-
Davies,
Douglas J. (ed.), Mormon Identities in Transition.
London: Cassell, 1996.
Tentative
Schedule
Week
One: Introduction & orientation
Film:
“Joseph Smith, American Prophet”
Newell,
Coke Latter Days: An Insider's
Guide to Mormonism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (read
entire volume)
Shipps,
Jan “Is Mormonism Christian?”
In E. Eliason ed. Mormons and Mormonism. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2001: 76-99.
Week
Two: Contemporary Contexts
May,
Dean “Mormons” In E. Eliason
ed. Mormons and Mormonism.
Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 2001: 47-75.
Stark,
R. “The basis of Mormon success:
A theoretical application,” In E. Eliason ed. Mormons and Mormonism.
Urbana: U of Illinois Press
2001: 207-243.
Ostling, R. and Ostling, J.
“Almost Mainstream” (chapter six), “Mormon, Inc.” (chapter
seven), “Some Latter-day Stars” (chapter eight), In Ostling and Ostling, Mormon
America. New York:
HarperCollins, 1999.
Week
Three: Kinship & Ethnic Community
Cooper,
Rex. Promises Made to the Fathers: Mormon Covenant Organization. Salt
Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990.
Embry,
Jessie L. "Ethnic American Mormons: The Development of a Community."
In Davies, Douglas J. (ed.), Mormon Identities in Transition. London:
Cassell, 1996. pp. 63-67.
Foster,
Lawrence. Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida
Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984.
Week
Four: Ecclesiastical Community
Dredge,
C. Paul. "What's in a Funeral?: Korean, American- Mormon, and Jewish Rites
Compared." In Palmer, Spencer J. (ed.). Deity and Death: Selected
Symposium Papers. Provo, Ut: Religious Studies Center, 19__, pp. 3-31.
Hammarberg,
Melvyn. "Guilt, Fear, Anxiety, and Love: Disciplinary Councils among Latter-day
Saints Today." In Davies, Douglas (ed.), Mormon Identities in Transition.
London: Cassell, 1996. pp. 102-111.
Leone,
Mark P. Roots of Modern Mormonism. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1979. (chapters
3-7)
Week
Six: Community Celebrations
Bitton,
Davis. The Ritualization of
Mormon History and Other Essays. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1994, pp. 171-187 (also in Utah Historical
Quarterly).
Olsen,
Steve "Community Celebrations and the Mormon Ideology of Place," Sunstone 5 (May-June 1980), 3: 40-45.
Olsen,
Steve "Celebrating Cultural Identity:
Pioneer Day in Nineteenth Century Mormonism," BYU Studies. 36
(1996-97) 1:159-177.
Week
Seven: Mormon Communities
Olsen,
Steven L. "Baptized, Consecrated, and Sealed:
The Covenantal Foundations of Mormon Religious Identity." In Bitton,
Davis (ed.), op., cit., pp.3-26.
Week
Eight: Symbolism: verbal
"Joseph
Smith and the Structure of Mormon Identity,”
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 14:3 (Fall 1981), pp. 89-99.
Shipps,
Jan. Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.
(chapter five
Week
Nine: Symbolism: visual
Francaviglia,
Richard V. The Mormon Landscape: Existence,
Creation, and Perception of a Unique Image in the American West. New York:
AMS Press, 1978.
Leone,
Mark P. "The New Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C." In Leland Ferguson
(ed.), Historical Archaeology and the Importance of Material Things.
The Society for Historical Archaeology, 1975, pp. 43-61.
Leone,
Mark P. "Why the Coalville
Tabernacle Had to be Razed," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.
8 (1973), 2: 30-39.
McDannell,
Colleen. Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. (chapter
seven)
Oman,
Richard G. "Lehi's Vision of
the Tree of Life: A Cross- Cultural Perspective in Contemporary
Latter‑day Saint Art," BYU Studies, vol. 32, no. 4 (1992), pp.
5-34.
Oman,
Richard G. "Exterior Symbolism
of the Salt Lake Temple: Reflecting the Faith that Called the Place into
Being," BYU Studies, 36 (1996-97) 4: 6-68.
Oman,
Richard G. “‘Ye Shall See the
Heavens Open’: Portrayal of the Divine and the Angelic in Latter-day Saint
Art,” BYU Studies, 35 (1995-96) 4:112-141.
Week Ten: The Individual
Bush,
Lester E. Health and Medicine among the Latter‑day Saints:
Science, Sense and Scripture. New York: Crossroad Press, 1993.
Week
Twelve: Mormonism in Comparative Perspective
Mauss,
Armand L. "Identity and Boundary Maintenance: International Prospects for
Mormonism at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century." In Davies, Douglas (ed
Mormon Identities in Transition. London: Cassell, 1996, pp. 9-19.
Shipps,
Jan “Beyond stereotypes:
Mormons and non-Mormon communities in Twentieth-Century Mormondom,”
In E. Eliason ed. op. cit. pp.
147-164.
Week
Thirteen: Student Papers
Week
Fourteen: Student Papers
Course
Web Links
The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints: Official Homepage
This is the LDS official website. It contains basic
information about the Church, including
membership numbers, information about their missionary program
and temples, along with basic beliefs held by the Church. The segmententitled
"Media Information," off the front page, provides lots of
organizationdata as well as currents events. http://www.lds.org/
All About Mormons.
This is perhaps the most comprehensive and accurate site on the Internet. You
can find virtually anything about the LDS religion on this page, and can be
confident that it represents LDS doctrine. A major defect in the utility of this
site is that it is structured with frames so that every page displays the home
page address. In addition, we found the internal search engine to be
non-responsive on multiple occasions. These defects diminish the utility of
an otherwise wonderful resource. http://www.mormons.org
Mormon.Com: An
Internet Resource for Latter-day Saints. This site results from an
initiative of a Utah businessman named Warren Osborn who visited this address
and found the content "utterly appalling." He bought the domain name
from the owner and has developed an attractive and reasonably comprehensive
site. While much of the content,as indicated in the title page, is "for
Latter-day Saints," it is an good source to learn about Mormons and the
broad array of LDS Church activities. http://www.mormon.com
Mormon
History: A Research Guide. This site contains a print bibliography of the
sizable holdings of the Research Libraries of the New York Public Library. Also,
links to other major collections of archival materials on the LDS Church. An
excellent place to begin for those interested in a serious investigation of
Mormons. http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/grd/resguides/mormon.html
Mormons Online.
This is a simple, but useful page for exploring LDS created materials on the
Internet. When this link was established, the page contained 216 links of LDS
sites, and a gateway to Mormon "chat rooms" and "forums."
http://www.mormons.com/
Basic
Beliefs of the LDS Church. This is a good site to go to if you are
interested in a basic "list" of LDS Church
beliefs. It highlights the main principles the Church is based on. http://www.trib.com/SUPPORT/RESTORATION/lds.html
ISAR
on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. J. Gordon Melton,
Director of the Institute for the Study of American Religions offers a succinct
and authorative essay on the Mormon faith tradition. http://www.americanreligion.org/cultwtch/mormon.html
ISAR
on Polygamy-Practicing Groups. The practice of polygamy was one important
doctrine that placed the early LDS Church in hightension with the broader
culture. While officially outlawed a church doctrine in the early 20th century,
polygamy survives in a number of splinter groups. This essay by J. Gordon
Melton, Director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion, addesses
the persistence of polygamy in sectarian Mormon groups. http://www.americanreligion.org/cultwtch/polygamy.html
Youth
Standards Page. This is the "standards site" and describes in
detail the moral codes and "rules" that the youth of the Church are
expected to live by. http://www.npl.com/~jradford/soy/strength.html
Links to LDS
Resources. Another page of links, although substantially smaller than LDS
World. http://www.Mormon.NET/
WWW
1ST Ward Homepage. The "WWW 1st Ward" - this site will give you an
idea of Mormon culture as well as what is taught during the 3 hour service each
week. http://www.uvol.com/www1st/homepage.html
since 10-22-01
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Charles Nuckolls Page
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