Call for Papers:

Race, Gender, and Power on the Mormon Borderlands

Announcement published by Dee Garceau on Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Date: October 15, 2015

Subject Fields:

African American History / Studies, Canadian History / Studies, Native American History / Studies, U.S. - Mexico Borderlands, Women's & Gender History / Studies

CALL FOR PAPERS:

Race, Gender, and Power in the Mormon Borderlands

Mormon history lies at the borders between subaltern and dominant cultures. On the one hand, due to their unusual family structure and theocratic government, Mormons were a persecuted minority for the better part of the nineteenth century. On the other, Mormons played a significant role as colonizers of the North American West, extending their reach to the borderlands of Mexico, Canada, and the Pacific Islands. There Mormon colonists intermarried with Native Americans, Mexicans, Hawaiians and Samoans, even as they placed exclusions on interracial sexual relations and marriage. During the nineteenth century, Mormons also discouraged Native peoples’ polygamous practices while encouraging plural marriage for white women. And for the better part of the twentieth century, Mormon religious doctrine subordinated persons of color within church hierarchy. African-American men, for example, could not hold the priesthood until 1978. Historically, then, Mormons have navigated multiple borders-- between colonizer and colonized, between white and Other, and between minority and imperial identities. This limnal position calls for further investigation. We propose an anthology of essays about race, gender, and power in the Mormon borderlands.

Over the past thirty years, historians of Mormon women have expanded our understanding of gender and power in Mormon society. However, most of these studies focus on white Mormon women, while Mormon women of color have remained largely invisible. This volume seeks not simply to make visible the lived experiences of Mormon women of color, but more importantly, to explore gender and race in the Mormon borderlands. Taken together, these essays will address how Mormon women and men navigated the complications of minority and colonizer status, interracial marriage and doctrinal race hierarchies, patriarchy and female agency, vigilante violence and religious responsibility, and plural identities. These metaphoric borders were brought into play on the geographic and cultural borders of the United States. Specifically, this volume will encompass the continental U.S. West, the borderlands of Canada and Mexico, and Pacific Rim islands such as Samoa and Hawaii, from the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. A focus on intersectionality in the borderlands promises to open new directions for Mormon history in concert with recent trends in western history. 

The anthology will be co-edited by Dee Garceau, Rhodes College, garceau@rhodes.edu, Andrea Radke-Moss, Brigham Young University-Rexburg, radkea@byui.edu, and Sujey Vega, Arizona State University, sujeyvega@asu.edu . Please feel free to contact us with any questions you have. 

Please send your article abstract or manuscript as an email attachment by October 15, 2015 to Dee Garceau garceau@rhodes.edu , phone: 901-484-1837.

Contact Email: garceau@rhodes.edu

“Religion and Empire” as a Theme for Teaching American Religions

by John-Charles Duffy

I’m in the process of reframing my “intro to American religions” course for this coming fall. I teach this course as a historical survey. For the past couple of years, the course’s organizing narrative has had two strands, intertwined like DNA: one story about the consolidation and erosion of Protestant dominance in American society, and another story about the expansion of religious diversity in the U.S. through immigration.

This fall, I’ll be attempting a single organizing narrative, unified by the theme “religion and empire.” By “empire” I have in mind American territorial expansion and the United States’ rise to political and economic superpower status. This experiment grows out of a conversation I had at the AAR this past November with Brandi Denison. By reframing American history as a history of empire—from the Mississippians and the Aztecs to U.S. neocolonialism and globalization—I hope to give the course a stronger transnational orientation, with attention not only to the flow of religions into U.S. borders but also to the flow of American religions and their influence out across the globe.

One side effect of this focus on empire is a shifting of the story’s center of gravity westward, away from the eastern seaboard. I already make a point, as I suspect all of us do by now, of starting the story of European contact with the Spanish and the French rather than the English. The theme of empire reinforces that move, plus now I’ll be including Russian colonization in Alaska and California. Manifest Destiny will loom large in the new course, which will ensure that Native Americans recur in the historical narrative rather than fading into obscurity after the initial European contacts. Manifest Destiny will also bring Hispanic Americans into the course earlier—in the course as I’ve been teaching it up to now, they don’t appear until the unit on post-1960s pluralism. Mormons will figure in the new course as an obstacle to American empire in the trans-Mississippi west; Confucians, Buddhists, and Sikhs help build that empire’s infrastructure and economy. I’ll be adding to the course a focus on Christian civilization-building in the United States’ Pacific possessions. Our readings will likely include McKinley’s account of how God inspired him to take charge of the Philippines.

Some topics that are typical fare in “intro to American religions” courses will probably drop out of my new course because they don’t tie in well to the theme of empire. The First Great Awakening will definitely go. The Second Great Awakening might survive the cut because of its connection to American expansion west across the Appalachians, but at that point in the historical narrative I’ll be more interested in Native American revitalization movements. The fundamentalist-modernist controversy is out, though we’ll discuss the conservative-liberal split within Protestantism in connection with colonialism, missions, and interreligious dialogue. The day I currently spend on JFK’s speech in Houston will need to go—the speech is an important turning point in a story about eroding Protestant dominance, but it isn’t pertinent to a story about imperialism. (If JFK gets mentioned in the new narrative, it will be for his contributions to the Cold War.) The black civil rights movement will still appear in the new syllabus, to follow up on the legal and social status of America’s former slaves. I currently do a day on American Muslims negotiating life in the U.S.; in the new course, I need to do more on Islamism as a reaction to American neocolonialism.

Again, in choosing “religion and empire” as the course’s guiding theme, my pedagogical aims are broader than highlighting religion in the American west—but I’m pleased that the theme facilitates that focus as well. 

“Religion in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains” Conference

The Department of Religious Studies at the University of Denver is delighted to host a one-day conference on “Religion in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains”, to be held Saturday, June 22 at the University of Denver, with the support of an AAR Regional Development Grant. It begins with welcoming remarks at 8:45, panel I 9:00-10:30, panel II 11:00-12:30, lunch 12:30-1:45, panel 3 2:00-3:30, coffee break 4:00-5:30, and keynote speech at 7:00. 

This conference brings together scholars from nine universities and colleges around the United States to examine religious identity and practice (including secular and spiritual approaches) around the region, past and present. It is intended to help highlight and bring greater interest to issues of religious identity and practice in the states of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains, and to provide an opportunity for faculty, researchers, and graduate students to connect with and learn from colleagues. The conference is envisioned as a catalyst for more sustained efforts at regional community building, including future conferences and workshops.

Conference structure

The conference consists of four panels of paper presentations, arranged thematically, highlighting recent research on 20th-century Protestantism in South Dakota, the development of the “Mormon Migration” website, the rise of non-denominationalism in Colorado and the United States, Judaism in early 20th-century Utah, indigenous studies and religious subjectivity, Muslim women in Colorado, Denver-area black churches as agents of change, and Colorado’s influence on Islamist thinker Sayyid Qutb, among other topics. Dr. Bonnie Clark, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Denver, will deliver the keynote talk, “Follow the Request of the Stone: Spirituality and Gardening in Internment Camps”, about her work on the World War II Japanese-American internment camp of Amache.

Registration and Attendance

There is no cost to attend the conference and registration, while encouraged, is not required. To register, please email Professor Andrea L Stanton: andrea.stanton@du.edu. Lunch and coffee will be provided to presenters and attendees.

Conference Website and Contact Information

For more information about the conference, please visit our website: www.religionintherockiesconference.wordpress.com or email andrea.stanton@du.edu. For more information about Dr. Clark and her work, please visit: http://religionintherockiesconference.wordpress.com/keynote/.

“The Burden of Church History”… in the American West

by Cara L. Burnidge

Celebrating 125 years of the American Society of Church History in New Orleans last weekend, fellow Religion in the American West contributor Laurie Maffly-Kipp gave fellow ASCH members plenty to ponder in her presidential address, “The Burdens of Church History,” at the Society’s Winter Meeting.

Drawing inspiration from C. Vann Woodward’s The Burden of Southern History, Maffly-Kipp asserted the continued importance of “church history” despite theoretical problems it carries within Religious Studies. While noting her interest in expanding the focus of church history to include people, events, and objects outside of a traditional notion of a “church,” Maffly-Kipp admitted that she cannot avoid the “nagging feeling” that she must hold on to the “church” part of “church history” because it mattered to historical actors she studies. Drawing on her own work on African American religions, Maffly-Kipp pointed to the tension that often gets overlooked within African American Christianity: even though Jim Crow weighed heavily upon churches, many African American Christians sought membership in and gave value to belonging to a church. In a short paraphrase of Maffly-Kipp’s remarks: it mattered to them, so it should matter to us.

What, you might ask, does this offer for scholars of religion in the American West? More than you might think. As her address drew to a close, Maffly-Kipp emphasized the significance of collectivities, networks, and institutional structures that shape historical actors’ individual experiences. Rather than choose between “fight or flight” with a traditional “church history” method, Maffly-Kipp pointed ASCH members to a renewed interest in institutions—and institutional memory—as a vantage point for scholarship. This, it seems to me, can be of great interest to RAW readers. How do collectivities (be they formal institutions like churches or not) and networks of collectivities shape religion in the American West or, alternatively, the notion of the “west” itself?

At first blush it may seem that RAW readers have a healthy distance from “church history,” both the physical spaces and the outdated model of scholarship. There may be much to gain, however, in reconsidering the relationship between the two. 

Summer Reading and Traveling!

by Quincy Newell

Summer has come to the University of Wyoming, even though it doesn’t look like it. (Seriously: the National Weather Service is forecasting snow for later this week.) So in the grand blog tradition of summer list-making, I have two questions for you readers out there:

1. Reading: what books and articles related to religion in the American West are you looking forward to reading this summer? What would you recommend to other folks interested in the topic? Because it’s not fair to ask questions without answering them, here are my responses (in reverse order): I’m a perennial fan of Laurie Maffly-Kipp’s essay “Eastward Ho!” (in Retelling U.S. Religious History, edited by Thomas A. Tweed). I also really like Steven W. Hackel’s Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis, which examines the encounter between California Indians and Spanish Franciscans at Mission San Carlos Borromeo in California. But this summer I am gearing up for a class on Mormonism (to be taught next spring) and a project on Mormonism (already well underway), so I’m going to be reading mostly about – you guessed it – Mormonism. I’d love to hear your recommendations on that topic as well, but I don’t want this post to get too distracted. So stick to the “Religion in the American West” recommendations for now. If I have time, I’m also going to check out a couple titles I ran across in our library recently: Catholicism in the American West: A Rosary of Hidden Voices, edited by Roberto R. Treviño and Richard V. Francaviglia (University of Texas at Arlington, 2007); and Blake Allmendinger’s Imagining the African American West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005).

2. Traveling: Summer is the season of travel for many of us. What sites do you think are most important to, most illustrative of, or just downright coolest when it comes to, religion in the American West? I have often lamented the fact that I became an Americanist – it’s tough to justify research trips to exotic locales (though Hawai’i might count), and the chances of leading study abroad trips or getting to go to conferences in cool places are pretty slim. But with Americans tightening their belts and staycations becoming standard fare, suddenly the American West is looking a lot better! I also have an ulterior motive here: I’ve pondered the possibility of a summer course incorporating a travel component, but I’ve not yet figured out a coherent set of sites to visit. So what would you suggest? For me, Devil’s Tower would certainly be on the list, and if my travel budget were unlimited, so would Jesus Mountain. We can’t forget Salt Lake City, of course, and if there are any LDS temples opening in the west, a temple tour would be de rigeur. (The LDS Church lists temple openings on their website – pretty handy.) Then there are the Spanish missions in California and the Southwest. I know the most about San Francisco de Asís (a.k.a. Dolores), so I would be tempted by that one – but the archaeology is probably better at Santa Barbara, and I could probably be persuaded to forgo California altogether in favor of Texas or another Southwestern state. But this is just me dreaming. Where would you recommend, and why?

Let’s hear it, people! Leave your top picks, wish lists, and idle speculations in the comments!