Sunday, July 17, 2016

Gendered Violence in the Book of Mormon

I hope all of you are having a great summer. I came across a great article about gendered violence.  Most of modern academia is obsessed with the new holy trinity of race, class, and gender/ sexuality. In part, this is simply due to new approaches to history that ask questions and pursue lines of research that haven't been done before. But its also a highly politicized field, and it tends to crowd out military history studies. This is one reason why John Lynn says that military history has an embattled future. Yet John Lynn also mentioned that these studies, done right, can help military history. John Lynn uses the example of French aristocrats that raised armies at great personal cost to themselves out of a sense of masculinity. Its why I want to look at the Stripling Warriors discussion of their mothers, and how the feminized courage might change our understanding of the text. In this case, the author talks about how the women of the believers were burned alive.  (You can also see some of the politicization as well, as the author seems to almost pivot into an Ordain Women lecture.)

Keep your eye out for some of my future projects as well. My article on the battle experience is on the final stages of being edited.  I'm also working on my power point for the FAIR Conference. I'm writing about insurgency in the Book of Mormon.  I have some exciting ideas about the causes of the conflict that include the unintended consequences of Moroni's reforms in the war chapters, and a reconstruction of the Gadianton ideology. I hope to see you there!

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