People of Paradox : A History of Mormon Culture.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (433 pages)
Intro -- Contents -- Introduction -- Part I: 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 II: 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 Painters and Artists'': Visual Arts -- Part III: THE VARIETIES OF MORMON CULTURAL EXPRESSION: A Movable Zion (1890-Present): Pioneer Nostalgia and Beyond the American Religion -- 11 ''Fomenting the Pot'': The Life of the Mind -- 12 ''A Uniform Look for the Church'': Architecture -- 13 ''No Tabernacle Choir on Broadway'': Music and Dance -- 14 ''Cinema as Sacrament'': Theater and Film -- 15 ''To the Fringes of Faith'': Literature -- 16 ''Painting the Mormon Story'': Visual Arts -- Conclusion: ''Through the Particular to the Universal'' -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.
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.