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In People of Paradox, Terryl Givens traces the rise and development of Mormon culture from the days of Joseph Smith in upstate New York, through Brigham Young's founding of the Territory of Deseret on the shores of Great Salt Lake, to the spread of the Latter-Day Saints around the globe.
Throughout the last century and a half, Givens notes, distinctive traditions have emerged among the Latter-Day Saints, shaped by dynamic tensions--or paradoxes--that give Mormon cultural expression much of its vitality. Here is a religion shaped by a rigid authoritarian hierarchy and radical
individualism; by prophetic certainty and a celebration of learning and intellectual investigation; by existence in exile and a yearning for integration and acceptance by the larger world. Givens divides Mormon history into two periods, separated by the renunciation of polygamy in 1890. In each, he
explores the life of the mind, the emphasis on education, the importance of architecture and urban planning (so apparent in Salt Lake City and Mormon temples around the world), and Mormon accomplishments in music and dance, theater, film, literature, and the visual arts. He situates such cultural
practices in the context of the society of the larger nation and, in more recent years, the world. Today, he observes, only fourteen percent of Mormon believers live in the United States.
Mormonism has never been more prominent in public life. But there is a rich inner life beneath the public surface, one deftly captured in this sympathetic, nuanced account by a leading authority on Mormon history and thought.
In People of Paradox, Terryl Givens traces the rise and development of Mormon culture from the days of Joseph Smith in upstate New York, through Brigham Young's founding of the Territory of Deseret on the shores of Great Salt Lake, to the spread of the Latter-Day Saints around the globe.
Throughout the last century and a half, Givens notes, distinctive traditions have emerged among the Latter-Day Saints, shaped by dynamic tensions--or paradoxes--that give Mormon cultural expression much of its vitality. Here is a religion shaped by a rigid authoritarian hierarchy and radical
individualism; by prophetic certainty and a celebration of learning and intellectual investigation; by existence in exile and a yearning for integration and acceptance by the larger world. Givens divides Mormon history into two periods, separated by the renunciation of polygamy in 1890. In each, he
explores the life of the mind, the emphasis on education, the importance of architecture and urban planning (so apparent in Salt Lake City and Mormon temples around the world), and Mormon accomplishments in music and dance, theater, film, literature, and the visual arts. He situates such cultural
practices in the context of the society of the larger nation and, in more recent years, the world. Today, he observes, only fourteen percent of Mormon believers live in the United States.
Mormonism has never been more prominent in public life. But there is a rich inner life beneath the public surface, one deftly captured in this sympathetic, nuanced account by a leading authority on Mormon history and thought.
Introduction
Part One: Foundations and Paradoxes in Mormon Cultural Origins
1: The Iron Rod and the Liahona: Authority and Radical Freedom
2: The Endless Quest and Perfect Knowledge: Searching and
Certainty
3: Everlasting Burnings and Cinder Blocks: The Sacred and the
Banal
4: Peculiar People and Loneliness at the Top: Election and
Exile
Part Two: The Varieties of Mormon Cultural Expression
Beginnings (1830-1890): The Dancing Puritans
5: "The Glory of God is Intelligence": Mormons and the Life of the
Mind
6: "Zion Shall be Built": Architecture and City Planning
7: "No Music in Hell": Music and Dance
8: "On a Cannibal Island": Theater
9: "Novels Rather than Nothing": Literature
10: "A Goodly Portion of Painter and Artists": The Visual Arts
A Moveable Zion (1890-present): Pioneer Nostalgia and Beyond the
American Religion
11: "Foment in the Pot": The Life of the Mind - Part 2
12: "A Uniform Look for the Church": Architecture - Part 2
13: "No Tabernacle Choir on Broadway": Music and Dance - Part 2
14: "Cinema as Sacrament": Theater and Film - Part 2
15: "To the Fringes of Faith": Literature - Part 2
Terryl L. Givens is Professor of Literature and Religion and Jabez A. Bostwick Chair of English, University of Richmond. His books on Mormonism and American religious culture include The Latter-Day Saint Experience in America, By the Hand of Mormon, and Viper on the Hearth.
"Terry L. Givens takes readers on a fascinating tour of the
remarkable achievements of Mormon culture; its distinctive
contributions to art, literature, music, theater, science, and to
the life of the mind. Eventually, one realizes that this is not
only a book about Mormon culture, but that it makes a substantial
contribution to that culture." --Rodney Stark, author of The Rise
of Mormonism
"Terryl Givens provides an elegant introduction to some of the
central tenets, practices, and psychic investments of the Mormon
faith. Linking Mormon teachings about agency, authority, salvation,
and revelation to broader impulses in Christian and American
theology and aesthetics, Givens comprehensively explores both the
distinctiveness of Mormon cultural production and its continuities
with wider religious currents. He describes the contradictions
and
persistent problems that arise, as they do in all faiths, within
the lived experience of Mormonism. An outstanding work of
intellectual and cultural studies, People of Paradox represents a
creative and
singular contribution to the burgeoning scholarship on the Mormon
tradition." --Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, author of Religion and Society
in Frontier California
"Givens's proposal that Mormon belief be conceived as a series of
paradoxes rather than a set of fixed principles is one of the most
significant advances in Mormon thought in a generation. It puts
Mormon culture in a brilliant new light. Moreover, by displacing
the standard themes from their usual position at center stage and
exploring Mormon cultural expression instead, he gives us a fresh,
new history of the Latter-day Saints. This book is filled with
treasures." --Richard Bushman, author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone
Rolling
"People of Paradox confirms Terryl Givens's status, if it was ever
in question, as the leading mid-career scholar of Mormonism. People
of Paradox will likely, for a generation or more, be the statement
on Mormon culture with which scholars must wrestle. This
well-researched cultural history succeeds brilliantly in what it
sets out to do-synthetically identify and explain fundamental
issues and trends within Mormon culture. It is even more
exceptional as cultural criticism. No summary can adequately convey
the elegance of Givens's prose or the subtlety and profundity of
his insights. The book is a superb historical introduction and
agenda-setting
conceptualization of Mormon culture."--Western Historical
Quarterly
"This is an impressive work of synthesis that engages a broad
secondary literature in discussing each aspect of the Mormon
intellectual and artistic heritage. While other scholars have
produced excellent studies treating Mormon literature or music or
visual arts, Givens is the first to offer a comprehensive survey of
key aspects of Latter-day Saint cultural life across the full span
of Mormon history. ...The breadth of its coverage, the
insightfulness of many
of its observations, and the effective use it makes of paradox to
provide a richly textured portrait of Mormon intellectual and
artistic life make it a solid contribution to the growing field of
Mormon
studies. It deserves to be widely read and discussed, and its
superior literary style insures that enjoyment as well as insight
will repay its readers." --American Historical Review
"Givens has accomplished something quite special with this
masterful study of Mormon cultural expression: in deriving his
discussion of Mormon culture from details of Mormon theology, he
suggests a union of the practical and theoretical elements of
religious life with a sincerity and seamlessness rarely achieved in
academic study." --Choice
"Givens' People of Paradox goes a long way towards establishing the
richness of the Mormon tradition."--Jared Hickman, Book & Culture
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