Digital Commons Network^™

"Provident Living": Ethnography, Material Culture, And The Performance Of Mormonism In Everyday Life, Danille Elise Christensen

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Samuel Morris Brown, In Heaven As It Is On Earth: Joseph Smith And The Early Mormon Conquest Of Death, Reviewed By Charles L. Cohen

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Untangling Scripture From The Philosophies Of Men, Mark Bukowski

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Terryl Givens’ masterful work Wrestling the Angel takes on the daunting task of examining the history of Christian belief while also examining the worldly philosophies which shaped its scriptural interpretation. As in the biblical story of Jacob’s struggle with the angel, we all must forge our own testimonies while confronting a secular world including godless philosophies. Sometimes testimony wins, and tragically sometimes the world wins and a testimony is lost. In dealing with this intellectual “matter unorganized,” interpretation of the secular philosophy becomes the key. With the right interpretation, philosophies deemed “secular” or “godless” can be seen as helpful and …

Latter-Day Saint Youths’ Construction Of Sacred Texts, Eric D. Rackley

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The texts that religious youth negotiate are often deeply embedded in their sociocultural practices, which can have profound influences on their religious literacy development, construction and manifestation of religious identities, and the development of their faith. Yet, although 85% of American youth claim a specific religious tradition, literacy research has not explored how these youth construct their views of sacred texts. In this two-year qualitative study of the literacy practices of nine Latter-day Saint youth, interviews and observations were used to explore what texts these youth considered sacred and how their views of these texts were informed by their religiocultural …

Rethinking Fremont Chronology, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

The dating of Fremont sites is based almost entirely on radiocarbon dates. A large number of dates exist from the region as a whole, but many of the largest Fremont sites are poorly dated. Most of the important sites excavated prior to the 1980s have at best a few dates, and many of the dates that do exist are on charcoal from structural wood. In some cases the only available dates are clearly centuries too early for the sites and structures they purport to date. In addition to problems with the data, some reports and publications about Fremont archaeology make …

Early Mimbres Households: Exploring The Late Pithouse Period (550–1000 Ad) At The Florida Mountain Site, Michael T. Searcy, Bernard Schriever, Matthew Taliaferro

Faculty Publications

Many studies have explored the household to understand social organization, production, and other dynamics of societies throughout the world. In this work, the approach outlined by Richard Wilk and colleagues is used to investigate households at the Florida Mountain Site, an intermittently occupied Late Pithouse period (550–1000 AD) residential site in the Mimbres Mogollon area of Southwestern New Mexico. Drawing on the similarities of this intermittent residential site to contemporaneous pitstructure sites in the Mimbres area, we suggest that one or more household units occupied the site. Our analysis also supports previous inferences that Mimbres households were integrated into more …

Excavations At Vista Del Valle, A Viejo Period Site Of The Casas Grandes Cultural Tradition In Chihuahua, Mexico, Michael T. Searcy, Todd Pitezel

Faculty Publications

In the summer of 2015 we conducted excavations at a site located along the Palanganas River, just south of the Casas Grandes River Valley in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico. This represents the first excavation of a Viejo Period site (A.D. 700–1200) in this vicinity since the 1960s. We discovered remnants of at least five structures, and fully excavated three. This paper reports our findings and compares them to previous work carried out in the region.

Split Personalities: Understanding The Responder Identity In College Composition, Anthony Edward Edington

Journal of Response to Writing

For decades, researchers and teachers in composition have wrestled with how to respond to student writing. Part of this discussion has focused on what role teachers should assume when reading and responding to texts. From these discussions, different roles have emerged, including the gatekeeper, the critic, the facilitator, the coach, and the judge, among others. While some have argued that the use of response identities helps teachers focus their responses while offering students an audience for their texts, others are more wary of what influence these roles may have on the student-teacher relationship and teacher comments. This article explores the …

Socrates' Mission, Daniel W. Graham

BYU Studies

Socrates is the quintessential watershed of ancient thought. He is known as the thinker who turned philosophy away from cosmological speculation to ethics and value theory. In his own time, he was hailed by Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi as the man who was wiser than all others, and he was lampooned by Aristophanes on the comic stage as a quack, a sophist, and a fraud. His followers included two of the greatest traitors Athens produced, Alcibiades and Critias, and two of the greatest thinkers and moralists, Plato and Xenophon. In the end, he was tried on charges of impiety and …

How To Hold On To Hierarchy: Russia And The Near Abroad, Andrew Jensen

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies

The smoldering wreckage of a commercial airliner in an Eastern Ukraine farm field signified so much more than just hundreds of innocent deaths; the downing was a bloody symbol of just how far Ukraine had fallen. Peace agreements between the rebels and government forged in Minsk in September 2014 and February 2015 failed to stamp out the persistent violence. Not simply a civil war, the rebels had been trained, armed, and assisted by the Russian military. While Russia flatly denied its contribution of men and munitions, few in the West believed the claims. Despite several rounds of sanctions by the …

From Darkness Unto Light: Joseph Smith's Translation And Publication Of The Book Of Mormon, Steven L. Olsen

BYU Studies

Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat. From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith's Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon.

Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015.

Le Morte Darthur And The Extratextual Significance Of Prophecy Across The Centuries, Stephanie Victoria Violette

Quidditas

Prophecy is the driving force of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur. The Morte emerged from a tradition of prophecy that existed long before its creation, and which continued into the early modern period. Prophecy influenced both political and religious spheres, as well as medieval cultural perceptions of time. English culture absorbed the Morte’s prophetic elements and used them to either bolster later uses of prophecy or to defame them. Using the Morte as a starting point, this examination draws on elements from various sources: Greek, Christian, and Welsh folklore, Geoffrey of Monmouth and contemporaries of Thomas Malory. Also part …

Reading 1 Peter Intertextually With Select Passages From The Old Testament, Taylor Halverson

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Literary studies, especially intertextual approaches, are relevant for exploring how scriptures are constructed and interpreted. Reading 1 Peter intertextually reveals the thoughtful way that Peter selected suitable, relevant, and applicable Old Testament scripture to encourage faithfulness for his audience. Peter draws from Isaiah 40 in 1 Peter 1:24-25 to preach comfort; Isaiah 40 is one of the hallmark Old Testament chapters focused on comfort. 1 Peter 2:2-3 quotes from Psalm 34 which is a hymn dedicated to the salvation that God’s servants experience when they faithfully turn to Him during times of distress and persecution. And when 1 Peter 1:16 …

Building Zion: The Material World Of Mormon Settlement, Steven L. Olsen

BYU Studies

Thomas Carter. Building Zion: The Material World of Mormon Settlement.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.

Dietary Patterns Of Paquimé: New Evidence From Dental Calculus And Microfossils, Daniel King, Michael T. Searcy, Kyle Waller

Faculty Publications

As part of a larger multinational project, we gathered and analyzed 112 samples of dental calculus (fossilized plaque) from human remains discovered at Paquimé and other sites in the Casas Grandes river valley to identify various microfossils still present in the silica matrix. Once identified, we used the prehistoric plant remains to reconstruct human/plant relationships present during the Viejo and Medio periods in and around Paquimé. Our data suggest that maize was used throughout both time periods, which supports current theories regarding Paquimean diet. Various types of grasses were also found, as were unspecified types of algae. Using our data, …

Contributors

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

Social Narrative And Sustainability Of A Danish Diaspora Community In The American Midwest, Craig A. Molgaard, Amanda L. Golbeck

The Bridge

This longitudinal study (1972-2015) focuses on the largest Danish American speech community in the United States of America, which is in Audubon, Cass, Pottawattamie, and Shelby Counties in western Iowa (the towns of Elk Horn, Kimballton, Audubon, Harlan, Exira, and Atlantic). The sociolinguistic mechanisms (code switching, speech acts, storytelling) of Danish social and cultural narrative are identified and examples are provided. We examine the social aspects of sustaining identity and heritage in a now globally linked community, and note lessons learned for other communities seeking to sustain their heritage in a healthy and productive fashion.

Full Issue

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

Late Fremont Cultural Identities And Borderland Processes, Michael T. Searcy, Richard K. Talbot

Faculty Publications

he spread of maize farming across the American Southwest reached its northernmost extent west of the Rockies by the first or second centuries ad (James Allison, personal communication, 2014; Allison 2014), in the area encompassing the Colorado Plateau north of the Colorado River and the eastern portion of the Great Basin. he practitioners of farming in this area, the Fremont, generally resemble other Southwest farmers in material culture, social structure, settlement, and land use. hey are markedly different from contemporaneous hunter- gatherers to the west, north, and east in these same characteristics and in general economic strategy. Changing paradigms have …

The Scalp Of Your Head: Polysemy In Alma 44:14–18, Matthew L. Bowen

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The fear that Moroni’s soldier’s speech (Alma 44:14) aroused in the Lamanite soldiers and the intensity of Zerahemnah’s subsequently redoubled anger are best explained by the polysemy (i.e., multiple meanings within a lexeme’s range of meaning) of a single word translated “chief ” in Alma 44:14 and “heads” in Alma 44:18. As editor of a sacred history, Mormon was interested in showing the fulfilment of prophecy when such fulfilment occurred. Mormon’s description of the Lamanites “fall[ing] exceedingly fast” because of the exposure of the Lamanites’ “bare heads” to the Nephites’ swords and their being “smitten” in Alma 44:18 — just …

Accounting For Whiteness In Mormon Religion, Sylvester A. Johnson

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

“The Man In The Shyppe That Showeth The Unstableness Of The World”: Social Memory And The Early Modern English Sailor, 1475-1650, Vincent V. Patarino Jr., Ph.D.

Quidditas

Both medieval and early modern English writers described the tumultuous, raging sea as the epitome of chaos and evil. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both manuscript and print documents connected seething storms with the power and influence of evil, especially the devil. As the Reformation advanced, this link included Satan’s supposed minions, witches. In addition to these texts, woodcut illustrations confirmed in very stark terms, a direct association between the devil, the sea, and sailors’ supposedly anti-religious behavior and beliefs. One powerful image revealed “the man in the shyppe” tormented by the devil; others depicted the devil steering a …

A Thoughtful Faith: Essays On Belief By Mormon Scholars, Philip L. Barlow

Books

No abstract provided.

Stories Of Smartness And Whiteness In School Pictures And Yearbooks, Eric Ruiz Bybee

Faculty Publications

This article explores the way that discourses of smartness and whiteness are produced and reproduced in schooling. Using an approach grounded in narra- tive research, I explore the convergences and contradictions between my own educational autobiography and the representations of schooling found in my school pictures and yearbooks. In my analysis, I argue that white supremacy played an important role in the construction of my own story of smartness throughout my primary and secondary schooling experiences. I also argue that yearbooks form powerful “artifacts of smartness” (Hatt, 2011, p. 448) that can be used to interpret and interrogate personal experiences …

Chronology, Climate, And Fremont Maize Farming In The Great Salt Lake Region, Christopher J. Allison, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

Archaeologists usually say that Fremont maize farming in the Great Salt Lake region began at about AD 400, and that a mid-1100s drought caused the ancient inhabitants of the region to give up farming. But radiocarbon dates from the region do not support these dates. The earliest dated maize and the earliest dated human skeletal remains with bone chemistry suggesting maize consumption both suggest that maize was not grown in the region until after AD 600. Also, recently obtained dates on maize from Fremont villages indicate that farming in the region continued into the AD 1200s. If the end of …

The Viejo Period, Michael T. Searcy, Jane H. Kelley

Faculty Publications

Farming peoples thrived in the mountains, basins, and river valleys of northwestern Chihuahua for hundreds of years prior to the construction of platform mounds and ball courts at Paquime. Their small pithouse villages dotted the landscape near the rich floodplain of the Casas Grandes River, where they farmed maize, beans, and other goods. It was during this time (AD. 400-1200), known as the Viejo Period, that the foundations of the Chihuahuan culture were formed. While recognized as forming the roots of a more complex society, Viejo Period sites lack the monumental architecture and ornate pottery of the Medio Period (AD. …

"Let The Beauty Of The Lord Our God Be Upon Us": The Importance Of An Aesthetic In The Ritualized Visualizations Of The Israelite Cult, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap

Faculty Publications

I n recent years, there has been a growing understanding that ritual and ritual environments are not only platforms for symbolic understanding but also structures that have physiological effect as well.1 The physiological effects on the senses, whether consciously perceived or not, add to the overall religious experience. If this is the case, the aesthetics, or the recognition of the sensual effects, is also important. With that in mind, I’d like to suggest that a visual aesthetic played a role in the Israelite cultic experience. More specifically, that a pleasing visual aesthetic as demonstrated in the presentation of color and …

Landscapes Of Interaction: Understanding Social Landscapes Through Quantitative Models Of Artifact Distributions, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

Exchange of material goods is one of the most basic forms of human interactions. By tracing the distribution of ceramics, stone tools, and other materials archaeologists are often able to make inferences about the nature of interactions, and about the economic and social relationships of the people involved. These artefact distributions are a fundamental feature of social landscapes, with the potential to reveal much about the structure of social life. But artefact distributions are often complex and difficult to describe, especially at large spatial scales, and they often require some form of abstraction to make them comprehensible. Archaeologists have therefore …

The Fall Of Fertility: How Same-Sex Marriage Will Further Declining Birthrates In The United States, Jason S. Carroll, Walter Schumm

Faculty Publications

The current debate over the definition of marriage is typically portrayed as a decision to "expand" or "extend" the boundaries of marriage to include same-sex couples. This argument, however, rests on the assumption that the basic nature off marriage will remain largely unchanged by granting marriage status to same-sex partnerships and that all this policy change will do is absorb same-se partnerships within the existing boundaries of marriage and emend the benefits of marriage to a wider segment of society. Indeed, the very term "same-sex marriage" implies that same-sex couples in committed relationships are already a type of marriage that …

Seeing Harry Potter As An At-Risk Student: Critical Literacy, Cultural Capital, And The Wizarding World, Dawan Coombs, Jon Ostenson, Whitney Sommerville

Faculty Publications

Despite his celebrity status in the wizard community, Harry’s lack of familiarity with its culture, language, social structures, and institutions constantly causes him to question his competence and magical potential. Although most muggle teens will never deal with the challenges Harry confronts as he tries to sort out Quidditch from Slytherin and Hufflepuff on his first visit to Diagon Alley, they can empathize with Harry’s attempts to acculturate into the social, academic, and political norms of a very unfamiliar world. Many students in secondary schools exist on the margins because of disconnects between their own cultures, languages, and social practices …