Gideon Burton's Blog

Mitt Romney, Stephanie Meyer, and "Fantastical" Mormonism

A recent post on GetReligion.org about Mitt Romney and Stephanie Meyer prompted these thoughts:

The attraction of the Latter-day Saint imagination both to the Young Adult fiction genre and to speculative fiction has been a focus of the academic study of Mormon literary culture well before Twilight. For a summary of Mormon Young Adult fiction (successful both in the niche LDS market and nationally), see my blog post (http://bit.ly/seDRj). In teaching the Literature of the Latter-day Saints at Brigham Young University, I account for this affinity to adolescent literature by relating the Mormon concept of eternal progression to the bildungsroman literary tradition (the coming of age novel). Joseph Smith himself authored a spiritual autobiography that can be considered in this tradition.

A Brave and Reverent Mormon Play: Little Happy Secrets

Perhaps the least accurate way to describe Melissa Leilani Larson's new Mormon play, Little Happy Secrets, would be in terms of the primary issue with which it deals, same-sex attraction. Unfortunately, homosexuality has become its own red herring, distracting many an important conversation or the success of a work of art because it has become so politically and religiously charged. Homosexuality is an ISSUE, something requiring people to take stands and poise themselves to be offended or to offend.

Finding the right artistic or rhetorical approach is everything in these matters. How can one assure one's audience that they are not going to be subjected to propaganda or preaching, whether from the left or the right? You do what Larson and the director and cast of this play did--you focus on the core human issues. You make homosexuality not an ISSUE (with all its inevitable dangers) but a subject--a reason for authentic art, not a pretext for divisive politics.

Creativity and New Media Mormonism

I presented a speech, "Creativity and New Media Mormonism" at the annual meeting of the Association for Mormon Letters on February 28, 2009 at Utah Valley University. Below find links both to the PDF version of the written speech and to a recording of it. In the audio version I excerpt a symphony composed by my father, Rulon T. Burton. The complete symphony is included as the last 9 minutes of the 30 minute recording. If you like the music, send a compliment to the composer (rulonburton AT gmail.com) or to the sound engineer, Perry (introspectiveafrika AT gmail.com).

Download Burton-AML2009 (PDF)

Download Creativity and New Media Mormonism (audio, 40mb)

Mormon Blogs - Sampling an Emerging Literary Genre

An emerging (and exciting) mode of Mormon literary expression is blog writing. I'm sure this is true of many other cultures, and I'm also sure that the digital divide has restricted many Latter-day Saints from engaging in this new mode of personal expression, but a definite flowering has taken place. Mormon lives are opening up as never before, revealing breadths and depths.

Mormon Young Adult Fiction before Twilight

The recent and enormous attention given to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series has sparked interest in Mormon authors and those writing for the Young Adult Fiction market. Meyers is not the first Latter-day Saint author to make a splash in this national market--even if none have achieved her celebrity.

Review: God for President (New Play Project)

Religious identity in America may be more deeply partisan than political identity. But as Robert Bellah has convincingly argued, America sustains a "civil religion." The idea, articulated by Rousseau in The Social Contract, is that a few general religious ideas--the existence of God, belief in morality, and especially the rejection of religious intolerance--are held sacred by the people. There is a reverence for religious pluralism in the United States, a kind of civic pride that one's neighbor can be Jewish, Muslim, or whatever flavor of Christian, and good for us.

Katherine Gee's new play, God for President (which premiered at the Provo Theatre Company last night), is a celebration of civil religion.

Fire and Rain: The New Play Project

Primal elements themed the latest installment of the New Play Project's series of short plays, adding to fire and rain the fundamental of faith. These were no morality tales, no Sunday school homilies. As good drama should, these amateur productions explored and experimented. Diverse in theme and approach, they once again proved the viability and growing maturity of amateur LDS theater. (See also my review of their last round of plays from July, 2008)

Review: Long Ago and Far Away (The New Play Project)

Though I have yet to see any of the New Play Project's religious plays (promising more Mormon-oriented content), last night's recent batch of short plays, a 90 minute series called "Long Ago and Far Away" was no disappointment. My $5 (well, $10 for my wife and me) bought a lot of entertainment. We walked away talking about other friends we'd like to take back to enjoy this amateur troupe's lively fare.

Mormon Studies Courses - An Overview

At the occasion of the Harvard Divinity School's new course in Mormonism (taught by Melissa Proctor), the Boston Globe announced that "Colleges scramble to offer curriculum on Mormon religion." The assertion left me wondering if the "scrambling" has to do more with the sudden new interest in things Mormon spurred on by Mitt Romney's presidential campaign or with the inchoate nature of Mormon Studies as an academic field. Regardless, it leads to a very fair question: at what point can it be said there is such a thing as an academic field called "Mormon Studies"? One course at Harvard does not an academic field create. Actually, a host of courses in Mormonism would not by themselves constitute such a field. M. Gerald Bradford's 2007 assessment of the future of Mormon Studies ("The Study of Mormonism: A Growing Interest in Academia") wisely outlines other factors critical to a bonafide academic field of Mormon Studies.

Mormon Studies Conferences in 2008

Mormons are being studied by more than Mitt Romney pundits. Here are some academic conferences happening that I know of this year (2008):