Arts and Humanities Commons^™

One Good Man, Christian Vuissa, Director, Christian Vuissa, Jim Dalrymple

BYU Studies

I had high hopes but reserved expectations while driving to see Christian Vuissa's latest film One Good Man. Though LDS cinema seems to have cooled and matured somewhat in recent years, it is nonetheless a movement that has generally been hit-and-miss at best. One Good Man comes as a welcome transition to deeper, more complex filmmaking. The film is far from perfect--it includes its fair share of cultural cliches and clunky sentimentality--but it also marks an insightful and timely turn toward a more intimate, nuanced exploration of LDS themes and culture.

One Good Man portrays a few days in …

The Frontier Guardian: Exploring The Latter-Day Saint Experience At The Missouri, 1849–1851, Susan E. Black

BYU Studies

As the largest Mormon primary source from 1849 to 1851, the Frontier Guardian is crucial to understanding the Latter-day Saint experience at the Missouri River. Until now, historians have extracted only small sections of the paper, such as marriage announcements, obituaries, and advertisements, because of the Guardian's size. Although it is only four volumes, the newspaper contains eighty-one issues, each spanning four pages in length and divided into six columns. This translates into roughly four thousand single-spaced pages on 8.5" x 11" paper. Fortunately, the recent publication The Best of the Frontier Guardian along with its searchable dvd-rom of …

Twisted Thoughts And Elastic Molecules: Recent Developments In Neuroplasticity, James T. Summerhays

BYU Studies

During the twentieth century, many in the emerging fields of brain science operated under the assumption of absolute biological mate- rialism—the idea that all reality in life can be reduced to our natural, physical dimension. For example, some neuroscientists sought to explain the deep mysteries of human consciousness not as any cosmic intercon- nection of spirit and matter but merely as a series of chemical reactions in the brain. Such assumptions in reductive materialism and pure determin- ism may sometimes be necessary within the realm of controlled scientific inquiry; but when adopted as a way of life, determinism has profound …

The Tree House, Philip A. Snyder, Douglas Thayer

BYU Studies

Douglas Thayer. The Tree House: A Novel. Provo, Utah: Zarahemla Books, 2009.

Proclamation To The People: Nineteenth-Century Mormonism And The Pacific Basin Frontier, Kimberly W. Reid, Reid L. Neilson, Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp

BYU Studies

Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp (Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and author of Religion and Society in Frontier California) and Reid L. Neilson (Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Brigham Young University and author and editor of several books, including Taking the Gospel to the Japanese) combine their expertise in this latest volume, Proclamation to the People: Nineteenth-Century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier. The Pacific Basin extends "from the west coast of the United States and South America, across the Pacific Islands from Hawaii to Tahiti, down to New Zealand and …

A Different God? Mitt Romney, The Religious Right, And The Mormon Question, Roger Terry, Craig L. Foster

BYU Studies

As can be expected from a book published by Greg Kofford, Craig L. Foster's A Different God? is well researched and engaging. This book begins by examining the rise of the religious right and the power it exerts on the current political landscape. Foster presents a good deal of information that most Latter-day Saints will not be well acquainted with, such as the difference between evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, the emergence of the charismatic movement, the rise and fall of the Moral Majority, and the subsequent establishment of the Christian Coalition. This background is particularly pertinent to the majority of …

In God's Image And Likeness: Ancient And Modern Perspectives On The Book Of Moses, Michael D. Olsen, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

BYU Studies

Author Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, PhD in cognitive science and a senior research scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), has written professionally on various topics in human and machine intelligence, has presented at meetings of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR), and has published articles on Mormon themes appearing in 2009 and 2010. The central focus of this book is an exegesis of the "book of Moses, a revelatory expansion of the first chapters of Genesis" and "Joseph Smith's translation of the early narratives of Genesis."

At 1,102 pages, this tome is not for …

What's The Harm? Does Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage Really Harm Individuals, Families Or Society?, Lynn D. Wardle, Paul A. Pratte

BYU Studies

Written by nineteen interdisciplinary authors and edited by BYU professor of family law Lynn D. Wardle, What's the Harm? responds to several questions concerning same-sex marriage: does legalizing same-sex marriage harm traditional families? Does it discourage responsible sexual behavior and procreation? How does it affect the meaning of marriage? Does it impair basic freedoms to citizens and institutions?

In this potpourri of scholarly and legal papers, attorneys, educators, family counselors, and even linguists document through scientific studies and court cases the consequences already inflicted on men, women, and innocent children through practices such as abortion and no-fault divorce. Because …

It Starts With A Song: Celebrating Twenty-Five Years Of Songwriting At Byu, Produced By Ron Simpson, Greg Hansen, Ron Simpson

BYU Studies

In the 1995 film Mr. Holland's Opus, a musician and composer tries to write one memorable piece of music to gain fame. He takes a job as a high school music teacher to pay the bills and over time discovers unexpected and even greater fulfillment during his thirty-year teaching career.

Such a story has parallels to that of Brigham Young University's Ron Simpson, producer of this CD, general manager of Tantara Records, coordinator of the Media Music Division of BYU's School of Music, and music director of the Young Ambassadors. Simpson left a career as a studio owner, producer, …

Sorting, In Evening Light, Dixie L. Partridge

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

The Ezekiel Mural At Dura Europos: A Witness Of Ancient Jewish Mysteries?, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

BYU Studies

One of the most stunning archaeological finds of the last century was the accidental discovery in 1920 of the ruins of Dura Europos, "a frontier town of very mixed population and traditions" located on a cliff ninety meters above the Euphrates River in what is now Syria. This Helenistic city had been abandoned following a Sassanian siege in AD 256–57 and was eventually buried by the shifting sands. Among the structures uncovered by excavation was a small Jewish synagogue with elaborately painted walls, preserved only because the building had been filled with earth as a fortification during the siege.

Understanding Same-Sex Attraction: Where To Turn And How To Help, John P. Livingstone, Shirley E. Cox, William C. Duncan, M. Gawain Wells, Kimberly W. Reid, Dennis V. Dahle, A. Dean Byrd, Doris R. Dant

BYU Studies

Readers looking for a book that supports the idea of homosexuality being an innate part of one's identity will not be interested in Understanding Same-Sex Attraction: Where to Turn and How to Help. Instead, the authors of this book assert the unpopular opinion, backed by scientific research, that same-sex attraction can be lessened or eradicated in those who desire change and are willing to try. Readers who empathize with the Church's position on homosexuality will likely find hope and useful ideas in this five-hundred-page compilation, authored by professional psychologists and scholars. The book presents three angles on the topic: the …

Full Issue, Byu Studies

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Thomas L. Kane And Nineteenth-Century American Culture, Matthew J. Grow

BYU Studies

This article, originally a lecture given at Brigham Young University in 2009, was published as part of a special issue of BYU Studies featuring Thomas L. Kane. Although Kane was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he was an advocate for the Mormon cause and a trusted friend of Mormon leaders for almost forty years. Kane's legacy has been passed down in LDS memory primarily as a "friend of the Mormons" and as their "sentinel in the East." Viewing Kane exclusively through a Mormon lens, however, has obscured the rest of his life as …

Liberty To The Downtrodden: Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer, Matthew J. Grow, Charles S. Peterson

BYU Studies

In this heartening book, Matthew J. Grow examines the life of Mormon friend Thomas L. Kane in terms of the reform impulses that propelled America during the antebellum and succeeding decades of the nineteenth century. Born to a well-situated Pennsylvania family early in the Jacksonian era, Kane reached maturity before the economic and social opportunities of the "gilded age" opened the modern era of industrial urbanism and professional specialization. Like many of his contemporaries, he was almost forced to become a reformer, a career he later integrated with the development of an upstate Pennsylvania area where his family had long-standing …

Thomas L. Kane: A Guide To The Sources, David J. Whittaker

BYU Studies

This is a bibliography of published sources on Thomas Leiper Kane, Elizabeth Dennistoun Wood Kane, and Elisha Kent Kane. It appeared in a special issue of BYU Studies that featured Thomas L. Kane and his relationship with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints. Although Kane was not a member of the LDS church, he was an advocate for the Mormon cause and a trusted friend of Mormon leaders for almost forty years. The bibliography includes the manuscript sources found in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University as well as published sources on …

He Is Our Friend: Thomas L. Kane And The Mormons In Exodus, 1846–1850, Richard E. Bennett

BYU Studies

This article, originally a lecture given at Brigham Young University in 2009, was published as part of a special issue of BYU Studies featuring Thomas L. Kane. Although Kane was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he was an advocate for the Mormon cause and a trusted friend of Mormon leaders for almost forty years. Bennett shows how documents from the Kane collection at Brigham Young University enhance, correct, or confirm our knowledge of the following: first, the attitudes of President James K. Polk and his cabinet and others close to him toward the …

Full Of Courage: Thomas L. Kane, The Utah War, And Byu's Kane Collection As Lodestone, William P. Mackinnon

BYU Studies

This article, originally a lecture given at Brigham Young University in 2009, was published as part of a special issue of BYU Studies featuring Thomas L. Kane. Although Kane was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he was an advocate for the Mormon cause and a trusted friend of Mormon leaders for almost forty years. MacKinnon explores the significance of Kane's role in helping to resolve peacefully the Utah War of 1857–58 by exploring what the Utah War was, when and how Thomas L. Kane became involved in it, what Kane's motives for involvement …

My Dear Friend: The Friendship And Correspondence Of Brigham Young And Thomas L. Kane, David J. Whittaker

BYU Studies

This article, originally a lecture given at Brigham Young University in 2009, was published as part of a special issue of BYU Studies featuring Thomas L. Kane. Although Kane was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he was an advocate for the Mormon cause and a trusted friend of Mormon leaders for almost forty years. This article focuses on the correspondence between Kane and the Mormon prophet Brigham Young. There are about 125 known letters exchanged between Young and Kane, beginning the year they met in 1846 and extending to 1877, the year Young …

Touring Polygamous Utah With Elizabeth W. Kane, Winter 1872–1873, Lowell C. Bennion, Thomas R. Carter

BYU Studies

This article, originally a lecture given at Brigham Young University in 2009, was published as part of a special issue of BYU Studies featuring Thomas L. Kane. Although Kane was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he was an advocate for the Mormon cause and a trusted friend of Mormon leaders for almost forty years. Bennion and Carter consider the ideas presented by Elizabeth Kane, Thomas's wife, who expressed her dismay with plural marriage in her writings about her visit to Utah in 1872–73. The authors combine Elizabeth's views with their interest in Mormon …

Preface, David J. Whittaker

BYU Studies

The L. Tom Perry Special Collections in the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University has been acquiring manuscripts relating to the life of Thomas Leiper Kane for many years. The focus of searching out and collecting these manuscripts has been to discover more about Kane’s relationship with the Mormons from 1846 until his death in 1883. Over the years, items of significance have been catalogued in the Perry Special Collections’ Mormon Americana collection. In 1996, the Lee Library was able to obtain a significant Kane family archive consisting of journals, scrapbooks, letters, and other manuscripts and photographs that, …

Thomas L. Kane And The Mormon Problem In National Politics, Thomas G. Alexander

BYU Studies

This article, originally a lecture given at Brigham Young University in 2009, was published as part of a special issue of BYU Studies featuring Thomas L. Kane. Although Kane was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he was an advocate for the Mormon cause and a trusted friend of Mormon leaders for almost forty years. This essay explores instances in which Kane assisted the Mormons and the people of Utah in their dealings with the federal government. After the Mormons began to leave their temporary settlements on the Missouri River in 1847 to settle …

Tom And Bessie Kane And The Mormons, Edward A. Geary

BYU Studies

This article, originally a lecture given at Brigham Young University in 2009, was published as part of a special issue of BYU Studies featuring Thomas L. Kane. Although Kane was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he was an advocate for the Mormon cause and a trusted friend of Mormon leaders for almost forty years. Geary examines representative elements of key episodes in which Thomas Kane and his wife, Elizabeth Kane, interacted with the Mormons. The article briefly discusses Tom's visit with the exiled Saints in 1846 and his subsequent activities that culminated in …

Full Issue, Byu Studies

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Spiritualized Recreation: Lds All-Church Athletic Tournaments, 1950–1971, Jessie L. Embry

BYU Studies

Historian Jessie L. Embry recounts the creation, growth, and eventual demise of churchwide sports tournaments organized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She uses as a framework the words of Thomas O'Dea in his book The Mormons (1957). As the tournaments grew from the 1930s to the 1960s, centralized planning and organization was required. The games and tournaments served spiritual and social functions: they provided a way to introduce people to the LDS Church and keep Church members involved, and they helped boys and men develop talents and good sportsmanship. Embry quotes many interviews that she and …

Constantine's Bible: Politics And The Making Of The New Testament, David L. Dungan, Carl W. Griffin

BYU Studies

The canon of Christian scripture has received much scrutiny since the rise of historical criticism in post-Enlightenment Europe. Nineteenth-century discoveries of new apocryphal gospels and epistles also fueled academic debate over canonicity, which has reached an even higher pitch since 1945, with the discovery of a corpus of Gnostic Christian "scriptures" at Nag Hammadi, Egypt. More recently, best-selling works by scholars like Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels, as well as Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, have introduced to a wide nonspecialist audience the historical problems surrounding the formation of Christian scripture.

Into this crowded conversation enters David …

Happy Valley, Ron Williams, Director, James Willmore, Jenny Willmore, Ron Williams

BYU Studies

Producer and director Ron Williams began his film as an attempt to follow his ex-wife, Nancy, as she entered drug rehab. While filming, Nancy's daughter, MaCall Peterson, was involved in the accidental overdose and death of her friend Amelia Sorich and the subsequent attempt to hide the body. From this development, the filmmaker realized the scope of the movie had changed considerably. He began to wonder if there was a relationship between Utah County residents' reputation for overly blissful happiness and the struggles that addicts in Utah face. Thus was born the documentary Happy Valley, a title meant as …

Historical Headnotes And The Index Of Contents In The Book Of Commandments And Revelations, Steven C. Harper

BYU Studies

This article is one of several in this issue about the Book of Commandments and Revelations, a foundational document of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This article orients readers to two important features of the Book of Commandments and Revelations: its index of contents and its historical headnotes. John Whitmer began to compile "The Index of the contents of this Book" in the back, on pages 207–8. It covers only the book's first 94 pages, ending in the summer of 1831. In some instances, it is obvious that he was not recording the revelations in their order …

Revelation, Text, And Revision: Insight From The Book Of Commandments And Revelations, Grant Underwood

BYU Studies

This article is one of several in this issue about the Book of Commandments and Revelations (BCR), a foundational document of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This article explores how the textual revisions preserved in the BCR shed important light on the process by which Joseph Smith received, recorded, and published his revelations. It has long been recognized that revelations published in the 1833 Book of Commandments were revised for publication in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. Less well known is that those texts were also edited prior to publication in the Book of Commandments or The …

Making Space On The Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, And Southern Paiutes, W. Paul Reeve, Jay H. Buckley

BYU Studies

University of Utah historian W. Paul Reeve has written an intriguing and engaging monograph examining the dynamic interchange between Mormons, miners, and Southern Paiutes along the Great Basin's southern rim. Broadly covering the last four decades of the nineteenth century, Reeves focuses his lens most closely on southwestern Utah and southeastern Nevada during the turbulent 1860s and 1870s when the clash of cultures reached its zenith.

Paiutes, Mormons, and miners possessed quite different worldviews relating to their notions about identity. The "complicated and messy" story that unfolds tackles the economic, cultural, political, and religious clashes that intertwine (and entangle) these …