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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Sun, Moon, And Star, Christopher Kimball Bigelow Apr 1998

Sun, Moon, And Star, Christopher Kimball Bigelow

Theses and Dissertations

This fictional novella takes place during the narrator Smoot's two-year mission to Melbourne, Australia. It chronicles the intertwining of the lives and destinies of three main characters: Smoot, a Utah native who struggles with carnality and lack of conversion and spirituality; Babakian, an Australian convert who used to be a punk rocker and has become frustrated with Mormonism's blandness and conformity; and Samantha, a nonmember part-Tongan Utahn with whom Smoot was involved before his mission. Speaking generally, the novella is about how Babakian misuses his creative powers of art and sexuality, how Samantha explores the gospel and changes her life, …


An Annotated Bibliography Of Literary Mormon Humor, Sherlene Hall Bartholomew Jan 1998

An Annotated Bibliography Of Literary Mormon Humor, Sherlene Hall Bartholomew

Theses and Dissertations

This "Annotated Bibliography of Literary Mormon Humor" includes over five hundred sources, cross-referenced to pertinent commentary and criticism, and divided into seven sections: "Humor in Mormon Fiction," "Humor in Mormon Non-Fiction," "Mormon Criticism Assessing ‘Inside Humor,’" "Gentile Criticism of the Saints' Humor," "Gentile Humor About Mormons," "Mormon Criticism of Gentile Humor," and "Mormon Internet Humor," all made accessible to scholars by a comprehensive index of more than one thousand topics. The author has filed selected photocopied pages of alphabetized, annotated items by author, or chronologically as periodicals, into a twenty-volume Archive of Mormon Humor in Literature, housed at the Center …


Utopian Marriage In Nineteenth-Century America: Public And Private Discourse, Brenda Olsen Andrus Jan 1998

Utopian Marriage In Nineteenth-Century America: Public And Private Discourse, Brenda Olsen Andrus

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a rhetorical analysis of utopian discourse about marriage in mid-nineteenth-century America. Although utopian communities are usually approached within the fields of history and sociology, a rhetorical analysis adds to the discussion by uncovering the discursive complexity of marriage beliefs within a rapidly changing culture. Discursive features of the Shaker, Oneida Community and Latter-day Saint texts are outlined and compared according to the following format:

Chapter One examines the textures of conflict within the dominant culture's views of marriage and gender roles in nineteenth-century America, with a brief overview of reform efforts of the day. This chapter provides …


The Impact Of The Physical And Cultural Geography Of Southeastern Utah On Latter-Day Settlement, Sally Timmins Mandurino Jan 1998

The Impact Of The Physical And Cultural Geography Of Southeastern Utah On Latter-Day Settlement, Sally Timmins Mandurino

Theses and Dissertations

The Latter-day Saint settlements in southeastern Utah, namely Bluff, Monticello and Blanding, were impacted by the physical and cultural geography of the area. These geographic elements hindered, and in some cases prevented, the Latter-day Saint colonizers from fulfilling the seven basic principles of Latter-day Saint expansion and colonization in the Great Basin. The impacts of physical geography were the geology, the climate, the soil and the rivers and streams. The impacts of cultural geography were the Navajo Indian Tribe, the Paiute Indian Tribe, and the criminal element. This thesis discusses the geographic elements of the area, how they impacted the …


Mormon Culture Meets Popular Fiction: Susa Young Gates And The Cultural Work Of Home Literature, Lisa Olsen Tait Jan 1998

Mormon Culture Meets Popular Fiction: Susa Young Gates And The Cultural Work Of Home Literature, Lisa Olsen Tait

Theses and Dissertations

The few studies of Mormon home literature that have been published to date dismiss it as inferior artistry, an embarrassing if necessary step in the progression towards true Mormon literature. These studies are inadequate, however, because they divorce the texts from their context, holding them up to standards that did not exist for their original audience. Jane Tompkins' theory of texts as cultural work provides a more satisfactory way of looking at these narratives.

Home literature is thoroughly enmeshed in the cultural discourse of its day. Beneath the surface, these didactic stories about young Mormons finding love with their foreordained …