HDS 2119 Fall 2016 Gender, Sexuality, and Mormonism

Taylor Petrey, Visiting Associate Professor of Women's Studies and Sexuality Office Hours: Tues/Wed 10-11 AM in Carriage House, 56 Francis Ave [email protected] C: 617.448.5421

This course will examine broad theoretical questions about the interrelationship between religion, gender, and sexuality using Mormonism as a primary case study. It covers the development and abandonment of polygamy, the advent and contours of Mormon feminism, the deployment of sexuality, theological and ecclesiastical issues, and other topics.

Course Goals:

• Identify important moments, institutions, movements, shifts in Mormon discourse on gender and sexuality • Historicize these shifts/situate them in broader American context • Explore how different theoretical/theological approaches to gender (essentialist, cultural construction, queer) inform the analysis of gender in Mormonism • Develop analytic and research skills

Required Texts:

• Richard L. Bushman, Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction • Holbrook and Bowman, Women and Mormonism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives • D. Michael Quinn, Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth Century Americans: A Mormon Example. • Brooks, Steenblik, and Wheelwright, Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings • Other readings will be made available electronically

Course Requirements:

• Attendance and participation in the weekly seminar discussions - 25% • Weekly Reflection Papers - 1 to 2 pages. Must be handed in each Sunday night at midnight for credit - 30% • One 5 page paper on topic relating to the course readings. - 10% • Topic Presentation and annotated bibliography for final paper on a topic of your choosing (and agreed on with the professor) which draws on and is informed by themes and questions relevant to this class. - 2-3 pages. All topics must be discussed beforehand with professor. - 5% • Final Paper of 15 to 18 pages. - 30 %

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Date Topic Week 1 Aug 31 Introduction to Mormonism Bushman, Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction Doctrine & Covenants 132 (Online) https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc- testament/dc/132?lang=eng The Family: A Proclamation to the World (Online) https://www.lds.org/ topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng Ann Taves, “Sexuality and American Religious History,” in Thomas Tweed, ed., Reteling U.S. Religious History, pp. 27-56. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Week 2 Sept 12 Polygamy Kathryn Daynes, “Nineteenth-Century Marriage Law in Utah” and “The Nature of Mormon Marriages” More Wives Than One, p. 55-90. Carmon Hardy, “Lords of Creation: Polygamy, the Abrahamic Household, and Mormon Patriarchy” Journal of Mormon History 20.1 (1994): 119-52. Carrie A. Miles, “‘What’s Love Got to Do with It?’: Earthly Experience of Celestial Marriage, Past and Present” in Modern Polygamy in the United States, 185-204 Joan S. Iversen, “Feminist Implications of Mormon Polygyny” Feminist Studies 10.3 (1984): 505-22 John Turner, The Mormon Jesus: A Biography, Chapter 8: The Great Bridegroom, 217-46. Orson Pratt, "Celestial Marriage," Journal of Discourses (online) https:// journalofdiscourses.com/1/9

Week 3 Sept 19 Women and Agency in the 19th century Brekus, "Mormon Women and the Problem of Historical Agency" (W&M) Newell, "Jane James's Agency" (W&M) Cope, "Reexploring Mormon Women and Agency in the Context of Polygamy" (W&M) Stapley, "Women and Mormon Authority," (W&M)

Holbrook and Clark, "'A Wider Sphere of Action': Women Agency in 1870's Utah" (W&M)

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Date Topic Benjamin Park, "Early Mormon Patriarchy and the Paradoxes of Democratic Religiosity in Jacksonian America" American Nineteenth Century History, (2013) Vol. 14, No. 2, 183–208

Week 4 Sept 26 Same-Sex Dynamics and Kinship in the 19th Century D. Michael Quinn, Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example, 66-194, 265-313 Samuel Brown, "Early Mormon Adoption Theology and the Mechanics of Salvation" Journal of Mormon History 37.3 (2011): 3-52. Jonathan Stapley, "Adoptive Sealing Ritual in Mormonism," Journal of Mormon History 37.3 (2011): 53-117. Stapley, "Sealings" in Power of Godliness, (forthcoming)

Week 5 Oct 3 Mormon Women, Motherhood, and Social Voice Bowman, "“The Best Social Practice”: Mormon Women and the Professionalization of Reform" (W&M) Brooks, et al., Mormon Feminism, 1-170 Ezra Taft Benson, “To the Mothers in Zion” (Circulated as a pamphlet). (Full text online) http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/2010/08/to-the- mothers-in-zion/ Due: 5 page paper

Week 6 Oct 17 Mormon Women and Resurgent Mormon Feminism Brooks, et al., Mormon Feminism, 171-292 Kristine Haglund, "Blogging the Boundaries: Mormon Mommy Blogs and the Construction of Mormon Identity," Mason and Turner, eds. Out of Obscurity: Mormonism Since 1945 (OUP, 2016), 234-56. Joanna Brooks, “Mormon Feminism: The Next 40 Years” Dialogue 47.4 (2014): 1-18. Due: Topic and Annotated Bibliography

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Date Topic Week 7 Oct 24 Mother in Heaven Valerie Hudson Cassler, "Women" Oxford Handbook on Mormonism David Paulsen and Martin Pulido, “‘A Mother There’: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven” BYU Studies 50.1 (2011): 71-97. Margaret Toscano, “The Divine Mother," Strangers in Paradox, (Online) http:// signaturebookslibrary.org/strangers-in-paradox-05/ Janice Allred, "Toward a Mormon Theology of God the Mother," in God the Mother, 42-68. Kevin Barney, "How to Worship Our Mother in Heaven (Without Getting Excommunicated)" Dialogue 41.4 (2010): 121-46. Taylor Petrey, "Rethinking Mormonism's Heavenly Mother " Harvard Theological Review 109.3 (2016): 315-41. (See blog discussion at www.bycommonconsent.com)

Week 8 Oct 31 Women and priesthood Linda King Newell, “The Historical Relationship of Mormon Women and the Priesthood” Women and Authority:Re-emerging Mormon Feminism Chapter 2. http://signaturebookslibrary.org/women-and-athority-02/ www.ordainwomen.org (Explore the website for discussion) David Campbell, "LDS Women's Attitudes towards the Church: Satisfied with the Status Quo or Restless for Reform" (W&M) Amy Hoyt, "Beyond the Victim/Empowerment Paradigm: The Gendered Cosmology of Mormon Women," Feminist Theology 16.1 (2007): 89-101. Elder Dallin H. Oaks, "The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood," https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-keys-and-authority-of- the-priesthood?lang=eng Cory Crawford, "The Struggle for Female Authority in Biblical and Mormon Tradition" Dialogue (2015): 1-70 Cornwall, Marie (1994), "The Institutional Role of Mormon Women", in Cornwall, Marie; Heaton, Tim B.; Young, Lawrence A., Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 239–64 Stapley, "Priesthood Ordination" in Power of Godliness (forthcoming)

Due: Research Paper Status Update

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Date Topic Week 9 Nov 7 Masculinity, priesthood, and patriarchy Amy Hoyt and Sara Patterson, "Mormon Masculinity: Changing Gender Expectations in the Era of Transition from Polygamy to Monogamy, 1890-1920" Gender & History, Vol.23 No.1 April 2011, pp. 72–91. Richard Kimball, "Muscular Mormonism," International Journal of the History of Sport 25, no. 5 (April 2008): 549–578. David Knowlton, “On Mormon Masculinity” Sunstone (Aug 1992): 19-31. (Online) https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/088-19-31.pdf Boyd Petersen, “The Priesthood: Men’s Last, Best Hope” Sunstone (March 1998): 10-15. Rosalynde Welch, “Mormon Priesthood Against the Meritocracy” Dialogue 47.4 (2014): 85-88. Valerie Hudson Cassler, “The Two Trees” (Online) http:// www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2010-fair-conference/ 2010-the-two-trees Quinn, Same-Sex Dynamics, 195-264, 366-400.

Week 10 Nov 14 Sexuality and Reproduction Elder Boyd K. Packer, “To Young Men Only" https://www.lds.org/manual/to- young-men-only/to-young-men-only?lang=eng Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, "Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments" http:// scottwoodward.org/Talks/html/Holland,%20Jeffrey%20R/ HollandJR_OfSoulsSymbolsSacraments.html W. Paul Reeve, "Black, White, and Mormon: Miscegenation" and "Conclusion: From Not White to Too White: The Continuing Contest over the Mormon Body," in Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Strugle for Whiteness, 171-87, 247-72. Melissa Proctor, “Bodies, Babies, and Birth Control” Dialogue 36.3 (2003): 171-87. Jill Peterfeso, “From Testimony to Seximony, from Script to Scripture: Revealing Mormon Women’s Sexuality through the Mormon Vagina Monologues” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion (Fall 2011): 31-49 Samuel Morris Brown and Kate Holbrook, "Embodiment and Sexuality in Mormon Thought," in Oxford Handbook on Mormonism (292-308). Terryl Givens, "Sexuality" in Wrestling the Angel, 206-220.

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Date Topic

Week 11 Nov 21 AAR/SBL- Postponed class

Week 12 Nov 28 Homosexuality Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “Helping Those Who Struggle with Same-Gender Attraction” https://www.lds.org/ensign/2007/10/helping-those-who-struggle- with-same-gender-attraction?lang=eng “Elder Bruce C. Hafen Speaks on Same-Sex Attraction” http:// www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/elder-bruce-c-hafen-speaks-on-same-sex- attraction Alan Michael Williams, “Mormon and Queer at the Crossroads” Dialogue 44.1 (2011): 53-84. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/ articles/Dialogue_V44N01_365.pdf Kendall White and Daryl White, “Ecclesiastical Polity and the Challenge of Homosexuality: Two Cases of Divergence within the Mormon Tradition” Dialogue 37.4 (2004): 67-89. https://dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/ sbi/articles/Dialogue_V37N04_85.pdf Taylor Petrey, "From Sodomy to Same-Sex Attraction" DRAFT CHAPTER Cragun and Sumerau, "“Why Would Our Heavenly Father Do that to Anyone”: Oppressive Othering through Sexual Classification Schemes in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" Symbolic Interaction, (2014): 1-22. Cragun, Sumerau, Williams, "From Sodomy to Sympathy: LDS Elites' Discursive Construction of Homosexuality Over Time," JSSR (2015): 1-20. Due: 3-5 page outline/summary

Week X- Dec 5 Same-Sex Marriage “Getting Out/Staying In: One Mormon Straight/Gay Marriage Dialogue 38.3 (20): 121-32. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/ Dialogue_V38N03_133.pdf Randolph Muhlestein, “The Case against Same-Sex Marriage” Dialogue 40.3 (2007): 1-39. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/ Dialogue_V40N03_11.pdf Wayne Schow, “A Case for Same-Sex Marriage: Reply to Randolph Muhlestein” Dialogue 40.3 (2007):40-67. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp- content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V40N03_50.pdf

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Date Topic Valerie Hudson Cassler, “‘Some Things that Should Not Have Been Forgotten Were Lost’: The Pro-Feminist, Pro-Democracy, Pro-Peace Case for State Privileging of Companionate Heterosexual Monogamous Marriage” SquareTwo 2.1 (2009). http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleCasslerMarriage.html LDS Newsroom, “The Divine Institution of Marriage” http:// www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/the-divine-institution-of-marriage Taylor Petrey, “Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology” Dialogue 44.4 (2011): 106-41. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/ Dialogue_V44N04_110.pdf

Dec 19 Research Paper Due

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Appendix: A Brief Guide to Sources:

Official Church Publications:

• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latter_Day_Saint_periodicals • http://www.lds-general-conference.org

Independent Journals and Magazines:

• Dialogue • Mormon Studies Review • Exponent II • Sunstone • Journal of Mormon History • BYU Studies Quarterly • SquareTwo • FARMS Review

Research Tools:

• Oxford Handbook of Mormonism • Church History Library https://history.lds.org/section/library?lang=eng • BYU Mormon Studies https://sites.lib.byu.edu/mormonhistory/

Prominent Blogs that Deal with Gender and Sexuality

• Feminist Mormon Housewives http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org • By Common Consent https://bycommonconsent.com • Mormon Women Stand http://www.mormonwomenstand.com • Times & Seasons http://www.timesandseasons.org • Millennial Star http://www.millennialstar.org • Exponent II http://www.the-exponent.com • Zelophehad's Daughters http://zelophehadsdaughters.com • Young Mormon Feminists https://youngmormonfeminists.org • As Sistas in Zion http://sistasinzion.com • Flunking Sainthood http://religionnews.com/columns/jana-riess/

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