American Studies Commons^™

Imagining The Saints: Representations Of Mormonism In American Culture, Jeremy R. Ricketts

American Studies ETDs

The purpose of this dissertation is to address how representations of Mormons in American culture reveal not only key aspects of the history of Mormonism in America but also tell us a great deal about American life and thought since the founding of the religion in 1830 to the present day (2011). Representations are powerful vehicles for creating, shaping, reflecting, and naturalizing society's understanding of religious institutions and revealing cultural concerns and anxieties, and the methodology of this dissertation thus focuses on interdisciplinary analytical critiques of diverse texts to better elucidate the complicated but deeply intertwined history of the Mormon …