A Mormon Renaissance

Hey everyone, sorry for being a slacker and not writing for so long. At least one reason I've been holding back is that I have been working on a sneaky bloggy project which is now live: presenting Mormon Renaissance, a blog about Mormon artistic efforts, their progress and criticism. I've written a nice long two-part blog post as the introduction, so if you've been craving my voice, there it is. Check it out and add it to your feed reader. I think it's high time educated Mormons, including me, stopped looking down on their own culture and started doing something about it.

It's not all about Card: Mormons and Science Fiction

All right, all right. After much harassment from Ben, I've been compelled to post something on my blog about what I've been up to. I just handed in a final paper with the title "Of Saints and Starships: The History of Mormons and Science Fiction." No, it is not all about Orson Scott Card. Seriously people. It's a twelve page long beast listing many of the intersections of Mormonism and science fiction. Here's some interesting excerpts, none of which include the ever delightful Card:

There are two strains of thought on the relationship between religion and science fiction. One view is that these two are inevitable partners because of their scale and themes, a view best represented by C. S. Lewis: “If you have a religion it must be cosmic; therefore it seems to me odd that this genre [religious science fiction] was so late in arriving” (Lewis 125).

. . .

The first [Mormon science fiction] is a short story/play by Parley P. Pratt in 1844 entitled “A Dialogue between Joseph Smith and the Devil,” which portrays a conversation between two regarding the success of the Restoration. . . . . As a work of science fiction, it must be admitted that the piece is fairly shallow. Most of the speculative fiction elements fall into the accusation that religious science fiction is primarily allegorical—the story exists primarily to convey a barely veiled ideas attempt to preach the Mormon message. However, this story undeniably represents an attempt by a Mormon to represent the tenets of his religion through speculative fiction framework.

. . .

Ironically, the short stories of inactive Mormon Zenna Henderson from the same period [1950s-1960s] show a more obvious LDS influence. In 1951, she published the first of her “People” stories. Her stories featured an alien race, dubbed “the People,” forced to emigrate to Earth because of the impending destruction of their home planet. Landing in the southwestern United States (Henderson spent most of her life in Arizona), the People established a society separate from humanity both to preserve their unique culture and to prevent harassment because of their unique psychic gifts. The analog to the establishment of Utah by the early Mormons is obvious, though it has apparently never been commented on by scholars . . . .

. . .

Additionally, three collections of specifically Mormon science fiction were published during the late 80s and early 90s entitled LDSF: Latter-Day Science Fiction (Thousand Oaks, CA: Millennial Productions 1982). These collections were inextricably tied to Mormon culture: the second volume contains an introductory essay by Hugh Nibley and stories that speculate on missionary work involving time travel and a future church where only women have the priesthood. (A copy with margin notes by Hugh Nibley can be found in the BYU library’s Ancient Studies room.) These collections are of mediocre quality and are generally little known . . . .

. . .

Six main themes of science fiction which coincide with the interests of Mormon theology:
1. The identity of the human race and possibilities for human progression
2. The identity of the individual; questions of destiny and free will
3. Explanations for the “homesickness” of the human soul
4. The identity of God; the conflict posed by discovering other belief systems
5. Responsibility for personal actions; the ability to atone for mistakes that affect others
6. The ideal structure of society; the treatment of fellow beings

. . .

Michael R. Collings studies several mainstream science fiction stories with prominent references to Mormonism, the most notable being the satiric “Fosterite Church of the New Revelation” in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (New York: Berkley, 1961); the sexually repressed hypocrite Nephi Sarvant in Philip Jose Farmer’s Flesh (New York: Signet, 1986); and the attempt to theologically sanitize Mormonism in Piers Anthony’s Planet of Tarot trilogy (New York: Jove, 1979) (Collings). In other words, . . . many of the Mormon stereotypes of the 19th century had survived intact in genre fiction, and specifically science fiction.

If you're interested in this stuff you might check out the following websites:

• http://www.adherents.com/lit/sf_lds.html - A comprehensive list of all mentions of LDS characters in mainstream SF novels.
• http://mormonsf.org/ - A database maintained by Marny Parkin containing a comprehensive collection of all science fiction written by Mormon authors, as well as a list of non-fiction about Mormon SF authors.
• http://mormonsf.org/reading.html - Marny Parkin’s recommended survey reading list of Mormon science fiction.

Knocking on the Door

I had an interesting idea for a short story in Relief Society today. It's a sort of allegory using passing a course as a metaphor for faith, works, and the atonement. I know, it sounds cliche, but at least I'm writing about what I know. :D

Anyway, it's turning out fairly well, but this story has had the annoying complication of forcing me to work through my evasion of going to see professors. Basically, I hate asking for help or dealing with people who know more than me. Observe this only slightly fictionalized chain of thought that goes through my head when I go to see a professor:

Later that day, she pulled out her syllabus and found the location of the instructor’s office. She circled it determinately with her ballpoint pen and set forth to the office building. As she walked down the stern hallway, important professors rushed back and forth on their academic errands. Bulletin boards hung on the walls, explaining the research projects of various professors, but the language was so complicated that she didn’t understand a word of it. Even the jokes and comic strips—posted on various professors’ doors to make them more inviting—only confused her.

And then, suddenly, there it was: the instructor’s door. She reached out her hand to knock, but then paused. She felt so out of place. There weren’t any other students here, only the professors. They all knew so much more than her that it seemed hopeless that she should even attempt to reach their level. Too much had happened before she had even been born—eons and eons of history, of experiment, of thought—so much material and not enough time to learn it all. How could they possibly expect her to sort through all the knowledge of humanity and, in addition, create something new? Compared to the problems of the centuries, the instructor would think all of her questions and worries so small and insignificant. He probably couldn’t remember what it was like not to know these things, and it would be a waste of his time to teach her. If she couldn’t understand these little things, she was just a lost cause, not worth the training that it would take to get her to a higher level. Who actually visited the instructor anyway? She was in college. She was supposed to be old enough to do things on her own. It was her responsibility. Knocking on the door would mean admitting she couldn’t do it, that she was a failure, that she was not prepared.

Just as she was about to turn away, the door swung backward beneath her hand. Standing in the doorway was the instructor, with a knowing, but friendly, smile on his face.

“I’ve been waiting for someone to come,” he said, motioning her inside. Embarrassed to be caught in her hesitation, she slumped into the seat in front of the instructor’s desk. He sat back in the swivel chair behind the desk, leaning back with his hands in his lap. “You know, I sit in my office so many hours a day, and yet so few of my students seem to find their way up here.”

“I didn’t want you to know I couldn’t do it on my own.”

“You weren’t meant to do it on your own.”

Now, I do usually get the jokes on the professors' doors, but the rest is pretty much true. Sometimes I think it would have been so much easier to have been born in an earlier century, when there was less to learn and more to discover. And I know the professors are really there to help us learn, but I simply can't get it drilled into my mind. Going to see a professor always seems like an admission of failure on my part. It's like a bluffing game in which I finally have to admit I don't have all the right cards. And I hate it. I guess it's mostly pride, since I build my identity on knowing things. :D

Anyone else follow this train of thought? Any suggestions on asking for help?

Progymnasmata: Fable

So, for my History of Rhetoric class, we're doing the progymnasmata, a series of rhetorical exercises used in ancient Greece. The first exercise is to write a fable, which is harder that it looks. I really sort of like what I came up with, so I thought I'd share it with you all. You may be getting a few of these cop-out homework-as-blog-entries this semester, since blogging time has been severely eclipsed by homework time. Oh, and sorry about the lack of a creative title.

***

The Squirrel and the Cat

In a small park in a quiet town, there lived a squirrel and a cat. During the heat of the summer, the park was often visited by people from the town going on picnics, who would stop to feed the cat with the scraps left over from their feast. The cat soon warmed to the park goers and became a particular favorite of the children who frequented the playground. But the squirrel did not stop to enjoy the company and generosity of the people in the park. Instead, he spent the summer rushing around from tree to tree busily gathering more food for the approaching winter.

When the summer ended, the squirrel had worked so hard that he had collected enough food to last not only for this winter, but for many winters to come. The cat, on the other hand, had no such stores to fall back on. As the winter waxed on, the squirrel was happy and content with his store of nuts, while the cat rummaged through garbage cans for food, and very often went hungry.

But, one bitter cold day in January, some children came to play in the park, and they took pity on the cat, taking him home to live with them in comfort. Meanwhile, the squirrel survived the winter on his supply of nuts, but when the spring came, he discovered that the surplus he worked so hard to gather had rotted during the winter, leaving him to spend the next summer as he had all the previous ones. So, though it is good to work hard, it is still better to have friends.

***

In other news, I passed my pre-requisite test for Math 302 on Friday! Certainly not with flying colors, but enough that I feel good about taking the class. Also, I've started reading Richmond Lattimore's translation of the Gospels for my New Testament class. I think I have to agree with Dr. Griggs in saying that he does a beautiful job with the language: understandable yet poetic and as close to the original syntax as possible.

Apt 15 Quote of the Day-ish: "I'm not Marisa." - Marisa (Figure that one out. :P)

Oops, I Bwoke It

A repost from the comments of the previous post, just in case none of you read it.

Yeah, so Blogger released Blogger Beta and I wanted to try some of the new features--tags, CSS-based layout, etc. (Incidentally, I've been feeling really unsatisfied with the look of my blog lately. As I've researched a bit, I've got some good ideas, but I'm too lazy to bring myself up to speed on CSS enough to do what I want. This seemed like a lazy-woman's way out.) In my over-zealousness, I merged my Blogger account with my Google account, assuming that my blog would carry over into the new account. So far, it hasn't. I'm desperately trying to get a response from someone at Blogger to fix this and get me control of my blog back. Luckily, I remembered that I enabled email posting, so hopefully this will post. If I can't get it up again in a few days, then I may resort to simply creating a new blog. But I really want to keep the old one because I like the address. Grr. Curse technology.

Meanwhile, it's nice to know that you people are actually reading my blog. Nothing like being gone to find out people miss you. :D So I've been using my blog time the past few days to work on a short story that's been rolling around in my head. Here's two paragraphs from near the middle to keep you entertained.

Excerpt from "Swan Song" by Liz Muir

As the guests mingled, the band slipped through the darkness onto the stage to test their equipment. Under the dimmed floodlights Jane could see the lead singer, a lanky man with hair too greasy and matted to be called flowing but too loose yet for dreadlocks. His eyes stared earnestly at the microphone he was adjusting. He always manages to look so surprised that they actually set up for him, as if he hasn't been doing this for years, she thought, watching as he tilted the mike back and forth on its stand with intense concentration. His wide-eyed expression contrasted with the scruff on his face, lending him the look of one who, having reached past the boundary of adolescence, had run from adulthood, striving to keep from acquiring the knowing expression that experience would mark him with.

He held his guitar like a father might hold his newborn son: loving, proud too, but still slightly uncertain how best to position this new extension of himself. Placing the shoulder-strap around his body, he slowly removed his right hand from under the body of the guitar, as though making certain the strap could bear weight. His now free hand reached down to adjust his grey striped running shorts—too short to seem natural on any man over thirty. His skinny legs poked out of them, whiter and hairier than would be considered desirable, but he was a seasoned singer, not a pop icon. Meant to be heard, not looked at.