Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Broadening the Field

At the Juvenile Instructor Brant E. has discussed his current research project about Mormons that fought in the Civil War. You can read it for yourself here (sorry if the link is broken, I'm a historian not a techie):
http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/an-introduction-to-the-mormon-particpation-in-the-civil-war/


This is a great study that shows how warfare can help us understand more about the Church. Here is a study of participants of a war that could have used the Book of Mormon as an ideological guide. It also represents the limits of my focus. I choose to focus on the internal textual studies and how the Book of Mormon compares to other military books and ideas. His paper focuses on how 19th century Mormons used the book in their lives. Both approaches are important and I look forward to expanding my studies in the future. (See the last point in my post "Ancient models for modern ideas")
I look forward to reading more from Brant and wish him luck.

2 comments:

  1. Do you have a link to the actual study I just got an explanation of it! That would have been an excellent paper in college.

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  2. I think the student is in the early phases of his research. So there is no link to the text beyond his brief description of it. If you do to the Juvenile Instructor (linked on the left side) you can find the article there that discusses it. Down in the comments he mentions the "leg work" that needs to be. So I assume he is just in the planning phases.
    But like you, I am way excited to see how his research goes.

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