Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“Much Dispute And Wonderful Contentions”: Modern First Amendment Values In The Book Of Mormon, Edward L. Carter

Faculty Publications

The First Amendment’s free speech clause, like the religious exercise clause, is profoundly counter-majoritarian. So the fact that a religious point of view is unpopular or out of step with a majority of society is not justification to suppress its expression. Rather, the unpopularity of religious views is the very reason why religious expression should be protected from government or private censorship. Free speech, including religious expression, strengthens and stabilizes society, enables the search for truth, provides a check on government power, facilitates self-governance and fosters autonomy. The Book of Mormon teaches Mormons to respect the contributions of free expression …

A Prison For Others—A Burden To One's Self, Anne Collins Smith, Owen M. Smith

Faculty Publications

Women have come a long way since the mid-1960's, both in the real world and in the world of philosophy. Given the advances in society and the developments within feminism that took place between that decade and the first decade of the 21st century, we might reasonably expect the new Prisonerseries to present a more contemporary perspective on women than the original. Such is most emphatically not the case. If we compare the original Village to the new one, it looks as if those pennyfarthing wheels are spinning backwards instead of forwards.

Digital Storytelling: Empowering Feminist And Womanist Faith Formation With Young Women, Mary E. Hess

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Cultural Identity And Education: A Critical Race Perspective, Theodorea Berry, Matthew Candis

Faculty Publications

The article discusses cultural identity, experience, and gap, along with the connections of critical race theory (CRT) and critical race feminism (CRF) with cultural identity and experience. Topics include the definition of cultural experience, the identity of African American educators, and the cultural gap experienced by African American students.

Eco-Terrorism Or Eco-Tage: An Argument For The Proper Frame, David Thomas Sumner, Lisa M. Weidman

Faculty Publications

What does the term “terrorism” mean? Is it accurate to lump illegal acts that destroy property but carefully avoid harming people into the same category as acts clearly intended to kill? Is this a difference of kind or just of degree? While we (the authors) don't generally endorse the destruction of property as a method of generating social change, we believe that the destruction of property is fundamentally different from the intentional killing of people; therefore, to label acts of obstruction, trespassing, vandalism, sabotage, or arson as “terrorism” is inaccurate and has the potential to damage one's understanding of real …

Media, Mormonism, And Mormon Media Studies, Sherry Baker

Faculty Publications

Bosco Bae has asked me to write a reflection about the Mormon Media Studies Symposia that were held at Brigham Young University in 2010 and 2012, and to provide some "general thoughts" about the relationship between media, Mormonism, and Mormons. I also will address the topic of Mormon Media Studies as an emerging discipline, and will conclude with some thoughts about Mormons, the media, and the Mormon Moment. My comments are meant only to be conversational in tone. They certainly do not purport to be definitive or comprehensive statements about the topics discussed.

Mormon Media Studies Symposium - 2012, Sherry Baker

Faculty Publications

Website for the Mormon Media Studies Symposium year 2012.

Review: Irish Culture And Colonial Modernity, 1800–2000: The Transformation Of Oral Space, Matthew Spangler

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Life On Screen And Other Musings On Faith, Food, & Media, Mary E. Hess

Faculty Publications

Media and food have this in common: a healthy diet of either one nourishes us, while an unhealthy diet causes problems. Just as we eat together in families, we should find ways to engage media together as well.

A Screen-Based World: Finding The Real In The Hyper-Real, Andrew Root

Faculty Publications

What is real? In our media-filled world, have we mistaken the image for the real thing? The church is called to proclaim the real, not by rejecting the use of sign and image, but by affirming those that speak the truth of our existence.

Utah And The Civil War Press, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

A discussion of how Mormons were treated in the national press during the American Civil War with an emphasis on polygamy, statehood requests, loyalty, and Brigham Young.

This chapter was originally published (and reprinted in "Civil War Saints" with permission):

Kenneth L. Alford, “Utah and the Civil War Press.” Utah Historical Quarterly 80, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 75–92.

Pragmatism And Meaning: Assessing The Message Of Star Trek: The Original Series, Anne Collins Smith, Owen M. Smith

Faculty Publications

The original Star Trek television series purported to depict a future in which such evils as sexism and racism do not exist, and intelligent beings from numerous planets live in a condition of peace and mutual benefit. As many scholars have observed, from a standpoint of contemporary theoretical analysis, Star Trek: The Original Series contains many elements that are inimical to the utopia it claims to depict and thus undermine its supposed message. A different perspective may be gained by drawing on the American pragmatist movement, in which the value of an idea is judged by its effectiveness, how it …

Labor Pains In The Academy, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This piece offers autoethnographic reflections on crossroads to which many academics come: whether to seek (or postpone or avoid) parenthood and when. The author deeply explores the personal (her own trajectories from daughter and sister to potential mother and from graduate student to full professor) in order to reflect on structural constraints associated with graduate education, the academic job market, and institutional policies and politics.

Free E-Books And Print Sales, John Hilton Iii, David Wiley

Faculty Publications

Digital technologies now enable books and other digital resources to be openly available to those with access to the Internet. This study examined the financial viability of a religious publisher that put free digital versions of eight of its print books on the Internet. The cost to put these eight books online was $940. Over a 10-week period, these books were downloaded 102,256 times and sales of these books increased 26%. Online sales increased at a much higher rate. Comparisons with historical book sales and sales of comparable titles indicate that that this increase may have been connected to the …

Mormon Media Studies Symposium - 2010, Sherry Baker

Faculty Publications

Website for the Mormon Media Studies Symposium year 2010.

What Difference Does It Make?: E-Learning And Faith Community, Mary E. Hess

Faculty Publications

By adopting a relational model of teaching and learning we can better align our programs of Christian education with our fundamental understandings of the faith. Digital technologies can help us do this more fully and more effectively.

Engaged Pedagogy And Critical Race Feminism, Theodorea Berry

Faculty Publications

The article describes the engaged pedagogy of cultural critic and scholar bell hooks in the context of the experiences that the author gained from a group of African American pre-service teachers in a social foundations course. It provides an overview of critical race feminism, which acknowledges the importance of storytelling and addresses the intersections of gender and race, and explains its significance to preparing African American pre-service teachers. It concludes with a discourse on engaged pedagogy from a critical feminist perspective which enables teacher educators to support the lived experiences of students who are socially marginalized.

Introduction: Thoughts And Ideas On The Intersectionality Of Identity, Theodorea Berry, Michelle Jay, Marvin Lynn

Faculty Publications

An introduction to the journal is presented which the editor discusses an article on critical race feminism by Venus E. Evans-Winters and Jennifer Esposito, a report on critical race theory and critical pedagogy and a review of literature on the educational experiences of Latinas and Latinos in the U.S.

From Ict To Tci : Communicative Theology(Ies), Pedagogy And Web 2.0, Mary E. Hess

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Short-Term Influence Of Free Digital Versions Of Books On Print Sales, John Hilton Iii, David Wiley

Faculty Publications

Increasingly, authors and publishers are freely distributing their books electronically to increase the visibility of their work. A vital question for those with a commercial stake in selling books is, “What happens to book sales if digital versions are given away?” We used BookScan sales data for four categories of books (a total of 41 books) for which we could identify the date when the free digital versions of the books were made available to determine whether the free version affected print sales. We analyzed the data on book sales for the eight weeks before and after the free versions …

Networks Of Dissent: Emergent Forms In Media Based Collective Action, Ted Coopman

Faculty Publications

The micro radio movement expanded over the course of 1990s and resulted in the creation of a Low Power Radio Service in 2000. Micro radio activists successfully leveraged the then emerging Internet and other digital technologies to further their cause. By doing so, participants developed new modes of organization and repertoires of action unique to the new interface between analog and digital worlds. In exploring this phenomenon, I developed dissentworks theory – describing how collective action emerges within digital environments. I offer his approach as a tool to reassess the impacts of an infrastructural approach to media based dissent collective …

Body And Bulimia Revisited: Reflections On "A Secret Life", Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

In 1996, the author published “A Secret Life in a Culture of Thinness: Reflections on Body, Food, and Bulimia” (Tillmann-Healy, 1996), an account of her struggle with binging and purging from ages 15 to 25. She came to understand bulimia as a communicative act, expressing fear, anxiety, and grief. From 25 to 35, her recovery from bulimia involved learning to “purge” emotion through other forms of communication (e.g., dialogue, writing, and teaching). At 35, separation and divorce pose the greatest challenge to the author’s 10-year recovery, yet she does not return to bulimic expression. This article invites readers to sense …

Speaking Into Silences: Autoethnography, Communication, And Applied Research, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

In 2004, two articles in the Journal of Applied Communication Research (Ashcraft & Tretheway, 2004; Goodall, 2004) celebrated the merits of auto- and narrative ethnography, methods of research grounded in lived experience and evocative modes of representation that seek to engage readers emotionally, aesthetically, ethically, and politically. Despite these and other persuasive calls for auto- and narrative ethnographic works, few have been published in communication journals. More than four years ago, JACR offered readers arguments for this kind of scholarship, yet no full-length autoethnography appeared in its pages—until now. This article, a prelude to its companion essay, “Body and Bulimia …

Micro Radio And The Internet: Dissent Network Formation In Media Based Collective Action, Ted Coopman

Faculty Publications

The movement to establish a grassroots community radio system in the U.S. in the 1990s coincided with the rise of the internet. The impact of internet on media based collective action highlighted shortcomings in existing theory. To address this, I develop a dissent network approach. Utilizing participant observation I apply my measures of consensus on system failure, relational density, process and resource sharing, and the centrality of digital networks to the case of micro radio.

Mormon Media History Timeline: 1827-2007, Sherry Baker

Faculty Publications

This timeline is a work in progress. It is posted currently as a PDF file in order to make it available in a timely manner to scholars who are working on Mormon media history, or any other scholarship for which it might be helpful and informative. It is anticipated that the timeline eventually will be reworked into media formats that will make it more accessible, and that will allow it to be updated, enhanced, and corrected over time. If you wish to comment upon this Mormon Media History Timeline, contact Sherry Baker at sherry_baker@byu.edu.

Reviewed Work: The Parable Of The Plums By Brian Fleming, Raymond Keane, Bisi Adigun, Matthew Spangler

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Coyote's Tale On The Old Oregon Trail: Challenging Cultural Memory Through Narrative At The Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, Jackson B. Miller

Faculty Publications

This essay examines the oppositional narratives presented in a Native American museum in order to explore the efficacy of narrative as both a strategy for resistance to hegemonic narratives of the settling of the West and a medium for sharing culture. The positioning of the museum visitor as co-participant in the museum’s narratives is also considered, with a particular focus on the relationships among narrator, story, and audience. Finally, the narrative of tribal life presented in the museum is evaluated for its potential as a vehicle for both cultural change and continuity.

Qualitative Inquiry Into Art History: A Tribute To Arthur P. Bochner, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This poem is dedicated to the author's mentor Arthur P. Bochner, Distinguished University Professor, University of South Florida.

Growing Faithful Children In Media Cultures, Mary E. Hess

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Marriage On Tv, Mary E. Hess

Faculty Publications

While it is important for teachers of religion to consider how television portrays marriage, it may be even more important to consider how we use television and how we help people engage the media with critical perception. People of faith need to do a cultural intervention, providing a deep and sustaining vision of what marriage can be over time and in connection with community.