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New Name, New Organization, But Same High Quality Found In Latest Issue Of Review

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, published by FARMS since 1989, has attempted to assist students of the Book of Mormon by reviewing every significant publication about the Book of Mormon published each year. While that commitment remains unchanged, the focus of the reviews published in the last several issues has expanded to match the expanding interests of FARMS - first, the Book of Mormon, and then other ancient scripture and related topics; thus the name of the Review has been changed to the FARMS Review of Books to more accurately reflect this expanded focus.

Here, There, And In-Between: On The Civilizing Process And Civilizational Analysis, Michael Palencia-Roth

Comparative Civilizations Review

This essay presents a cautionary tale about certain problems with systematization and abstraction in comparative civilizational studies. It advocates instead for the analysis of single works, limited events, or particular figures, within larger issues pertaining to what is understood as a “civilization” or “culture”. It prioritizes certain aspects of the civilizing process: the here, or the civilizing and interpretive gaze; the there, or the Other that is the object of that gaze; and the in-between. It further suggests that insights and methods from Mikhail Bakhtin, Hans-Georg Gadamer and others from the humanities, social sciences, and philosophy can …

Minority Language Education In Russia: An Example Of Social And Cultural Reproduction And Correspondence Theories, Nadezhda Braun

Russian Language Journal

Russia is an incredibly diverse country, both linguistically and ethnically. However, Russia is often presented, and presents itself, as a monolith. Russia’s approach to minority language teaching further perpetuates this monolithic view by creating a hierarchical language structure with Russian at the top. This hierarchy is created through societal pressure, language requirements in the Russian education system, and the minimization of minority language instruction, in direct contrast to best practices for language instruction. Chuvash in Chuvashia and Nenets, Khanty, and Selkup in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug serve as examples of this linguistic hierarchy. This paper uses social and cultural reproduction …

Rlj Volume 73, Number 1 Full Issue

Russian Language Journal

No abstract provided.

Suicide Among Adolescents In South Korea, Alyssa Kang

Ballard Brief

Suicide is a prevalent issue that widely affects all demographics in South Korea. Among adolescents, it is the leading cause of mortality with an average rate of 7 deaths per 100,000 people. Some of the most significant factors that influence the risk of suicidal ideation and attempts are cultural stigma and academic stress. Other factors, such as bullying and family structure, also increase the likelihood of suicide. There are also specific characteristics which predict suicide, including internet addiction, socioeconomic status, and substance abuse. Adolescent suicide attempts in Korea also increase the individual's risk for future attempts. Additionally, completed suicides can …

Afrikaans Taboo Words: Offensiveness Ranking And Reflections In Usage, Rebecca Brenkman

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the offensiveness of Afrikaans taboo words gathered from an online survey and cross-compares it to grammatical constructions and functionality as displayed in an Afrikaans corpus. Culturally speaking, Afrikaans has a rich history of taboo terminology, especially in the racial category. The historical importance of taboo terms aids in understanding the evolution of the offensiveness of terms, especially as influenced by factors such as politics, attitude shifts, younger generations, etc. Results from the online survey focused primarily on the White Afrikaans-speaking population, as minimal responses were gathered from other ethnic groups. Additional findings from the survey indicated that …

Finished, Shayla Frandsen

Theses and Dissertations

Sixteen-year-old Tiny Sinclair begins her first year at Charity Ambrose Finishing School in 1953 already feeling like an outcast: her mother, a glamorous movie star, is dead, and her father is imprisoned under suspicion of being a Communist. All her classmates seem to have it so easy: beautiful Betty is an elegant and popular socialite, while Diane, the richest girl in school, is dangerous and mysterious (and, for some reason, hell-bent on ruining Tiny's life). When a classmate is found dead and Tiny becomes the number one suspect, the situation seems to go from bad to worse. Determined to clear …

On Civilizational Strategic Studies, Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

Given the on-going crises around the world, especially the current war in Ukraine, it has become imperative to analyze the strategic interests of the major geopolitical players in the world. Samuel P. Huntington formulated his controversial “Clash of Civilizations” thesis almost thirty years ago, but this topic has received a resurgence of interest due to Christopher Coker’s research on “civilizational states.” Coker takes this concept a bit further by arguing that different geopolitical actors disagree on how the world should be ordered.

Now is perhaps the most opportune time to examine the relevance of civilizations as well as civilizational theory …

Cognitive Effects Of Grammatical Gender In L2 Spanish Acquisition: A Study Among Latter-Day Saint Returned Missionaries, Hannah Cagle

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The current study aims to explore the cognitive effects of L2 Spanish acquisition and the role that spending time in the target language country has on L2 learners’ categorization of inanimate objects. Three groups of participants were analyzed: monolingual English speakers, L2 Spanish speakers that learned their Spanish while serving missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) abroad, and L2 Spanish speakers that learned their Spanish while serving LDS missions in the United States. Using a Qualtrics survey, participants were tasked with pairing a list of adjectives stereotypically associated with males or females (Williams & Bennett, …

Korean Pop Idols: The Dark Side Of The Limelight, Ashley Chase

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Korean pop music has risen to an international consciousness during the surge of the cultural Korean wave. However, many are still unaware of the struggles that idols face when pursuing a career in this industry. Many artists in the industry struggle with their physical and emotional health due to rigorous schedules in training and as a performing group, high expectations of performance and appearance, and restrictive contracts known as “slave contracts” that limit their personal freedoms and financial resources. These factors lead to the industry being highly damaging to the stars that participate in it.

In this documentary, I take …

Trapped By The Past: A History And Translation Of An Equatoguinean Poet, Paul A. Guajardo

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Atrapado por el pasado (Trapped by the Past in English) is a collection of Spanish-language poetry and prose by the Equatoguinean poet Zankús Mázé Menemádjimol. Menemádjimol’s work has never received an English translation, and this thesis provides a poetic rendition of three of his poems. It also offers a brief historical introduction, literary overview, and commentary on the poems. While the main goal of this project is artistic and creative, it also aims to introduce readers to an oft-overlooked culture. Equatorial Guinea and the poet’s home island of Annobón are frequently ignored in the fields of both literature and history. …

Full Issue

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

No abstract provided.

Doctrine And Covenants 21: Metanarrative Of The Restoration, Steve L. Olsen

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

Joseph Smith dictated Doctrine and Covenants 21 at the inaugural meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ on April 6, 1830. The present study examines the literary craftsmanship of the revelation to plumb the depths of its role in the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The analysis explores the meaning of patterns of usage in the text from the most specific (diction, syntax, figures of speech) to the most general (tone, rhetoric, and structural logic). The hypothesis of this study is that Doctrine and Covenants 21 provides a metanarrative of the Restoration — that is, a set of …

Twenty Years After “Paradigms Regained,” Part 1: The Ongoing, Plain, And Precious Significance Of Margaret Barker’S Scholarship For Latter-Day Saint Studies, Kevin Christensen

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

Twenty years ago, the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies published “Paradigms Regained: A Survey of Margaret Barker’s Scholarship and Its Significance for Mormon Studies” as its second FARMS Occasional Paper. The first part of this essay provides an overview of Doctor Barker’s scholarship and its wider reception through early 2022, and then includes a broad survey of Latter-day Saint interaction with her work to the present. Part 2 of this essay (forthcoming) will address specific criticisms and appreciations of Barker’s work.

Langland, Father Of American Literatures, John M. Bowers

Quidditas

Geoffrey Chaucer’s position as “father of English literature” has been steadily challenged in recent years. This paper both proposes and interrogates the other fourteenth-century English poet William Langland’s possible claims as the origin for the Puritan tradition of New England and, hence, the later traditions of American literatures—in the plural. We know that the first copy of his satirical, theological dream-vision Piers Plowman arrived in New England in 1630 with the father of Anne Bradstreet, and as a result any patriarchal genealogy is already problematic because the first author in the American family-tree was a woman. Rather than the linearity …

Review: Jared Hess And Tyler Measom, Dirs. Murder Among The Mormons. Bbc Studios, 2021., Hillary Kirkham

Mormon Studies Review

The three-part Netflix miniseries Murder Among the Mormons by directors Jared Hess and Tyler Measom is a story about construction— of forged documents and lethal bombs, but also of memory and meaning. The documentary details the story of Mark Hofmann, the master document forger who murdered two individuals as his web of deceptions unraveled. Despite the title, however, the docuseries is not centered on the murders of Hofmann’s victims Steve Christensen and Kathy Sheets; rather, the nearly three-hour docuseries focuses on Hofmann, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ relationship with its past, and Hofmann’s impact on the religious …

Review: Samuel Morris Brown. Joseph Smith’S Translation: The Words And Worlds Of Early Mormonism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020., Douglas J. Davies

Mormon Studies Review

Why do we write books? Why did Joseph Smith write his, and why does Samuel Brown write on Smith writing his? I suppose this regressive query may sound mildly absurd coming from one academic to others, largely alert to career, pride, obligation and, optimistically, to the love of shared knowing. Perhaps I have written too many myself, read far more and—just now—for whatever reason, find this rhetorical question springing to mind. By contrast, it is usually easy to answer the question of how someone has written their book, ascertain its genre, and comment on its single disciplinary driver or, as …

Review: Don Argott, Dir. Keep Sweet. 44 Blue Productions, 2021., Stephanie Griswold

Mormon Studies Review

The recent documentary Keep Sweet, directed by Don Argott and produced by Glenn Meehan (not to be confused with the 2022 Netflix documentary Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey), recounts the producer’s experiences meeting members of the historically Fundamentalist Mormon community in Southern Utah known as Short Creek. The film is advertised as “rare access to current FLDS members” from “a producer embedded for over a decade.” The film follows the producer, Meehan, as he meets ex-members and followers of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) and depicts their experiences with the changes in their …

Interpretive Language And Museum Artwork: How Patrons Respond To Depictions Of Native American And White Settler Encounters--A Thematic Analysis, Holli D. Rogerson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to conduct a thematic linguistic analysis of survey responses to museum-quality images depicting various Native American and white settler encounters. The survey asked participants to provide written responses (fill in the blank prompts) to a selection of twelve images composed of photographs and paintings representing one or more of three overarching themes: violence, immersion, and goodwill/collaboration. The research focused on four demographic groups: Latter-day Saints, Native Americans, museum employees, and total participants. Each response was individually analyzed by hand and assigned appropriate classification tags based on the types of words their responses contained including …

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lectures On Christianity In The Middle East

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

In March the Institute cosponsored a lecture series at Brigham Young University titled “Christianity in the Middle East.” The series provided a historical overview of the eastward spread of Christianity into the pagan Near East, a subject largely neglected in religious and socio-cultural studies. Over many centuries, Christian groups maintained a presence in the region, leaving behind a notable literary, monumental, and artistic legacy that is increasingly being recognized as an important part of the world’s cultural heritage.

Patrick Henry, Gideon, And The Book Of Mormon

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Historian Richard L. Bush-man, responding to accusations that the Book of Mormon contains “evidence of nineteenth-century American political culture,” concluded that in fact “most of the principles tradition-ally associated with the American Constitution are slighted or disregarded altogether” in the book. “So many of the powerful intellectual influences operating on Joseph Smith failed to touch the Book of Mormon.”

Jeal 175 Full Issue

Journal of East Asian Libraries

No abstract provided.

A Reflection On The Challenges And Collaborative Potential In Working With Buddhist Studies Materials In East Asian Librarianship, Matthew Hayes

Journal of East Asian Libraries

This article explores a set of shared challenges that tend to emerge for East Asian Librarians in working with Buddhist studies materials. It outlines how Buddhist linguistic conventions can give rise to an unpredictability in reference work, how its historical textual practices can complicate collections development, and how Buddhist temple archive management can make traditional approaches to research advising unreliable. It also proposes that these challenges provide distinct opportunities for collaboration across Chinese, Japanese, and Korean areas of bibliographic coverage. These challenges offer a chance for librarians to work together and develop a standard, field-wide toolset for working with these …

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dss Library Wins Ala Choice Award

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Each year in January, Choice magazine recognizes a short list of the best academic titles from among the 7,000 or so reviewed in the previous year. Among the winners of the January 2008 awards is BYU’s Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library, which was produced by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and published by Brill Academic Press. This electronic database contains searchable texts of all of the published non-biblical scrolls. High resolution images of the scrolls and a complete English translation accompany the texts. The latest version of the database, published at the end of 2006, is the …

Scripture Update: El Niño And Lehi’S Voyage Revisited, Warren P. Aston

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

In recent years several scholars have drawn the attention of Latter-day Saints to the phenomenon popularly known as “El Niño.”1 In 1990 David L. Clark highlighted the fact that a mechanism was now known to science that would permit, periodically, easterly sea travel across the Pacific, the direction Lehi’s party is understood to have traveled.2 ENSO, the more formal acronym for this phenomenon, comes from El Niño (the Christ child) and Southern Oscillation, referring to the fact that the changes commence in the southern Pacific Ocean. The intermittent ENSO effect creates an easterly equatorial current running counter to the prevailing …

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Prophet Like Moses, John A. Tvedtnes, E. Jan Wilson

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

One of the most frequently quoted Old Testament passages in scripture is Moses’s prophecy as re corded in Deuteronomy 18:15–19:

The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have …

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.