Dallas Sunstone Symposium announcement
The preliminary program for the Dallas Sunstone Symposium has now been posted on the Sunstone website. It’s being held this year in a private home in Plano (Spanish for “plain“).
Highlights of the symposium include:
Title: OLD AND NEW PROJECTS: CATCHING UP WITH TODD COMPTON
Presenter: Todd Compton, Mountain View, California Abstract: In this informal session, Todd Compton will share with us experiences from (and answer questions about) the writing of his groundbreaking study, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, as well as tease us with insights and the flavor of his new book-under-construction, Victim of the Muses. It will be great fun interacting with this favorite Mormon son again.
Title: THE NAUVOO TEMPLE EXPERIENCE
Presenter: Devery S. Anderson, Salt Lake City, Utah
Abstract: Devery Anderson, co-editor with Gary James Bergera of the two-volume documentary history set, Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842–1845 and The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845–1846 (published last fall by Signature Books), will give us a glimpse into temple worship in Nauvoo during its heyday as well as in the chaos that followed Joseph Smith’s martyrdom. How did the temple function for early Latter-day Saints compared to its role and place in Mormon lives and doctrine today?
Title: THE MORMON EXPULSIONS IN FRONTIER AMERICA: EXPLORING REGIONAL AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES
Presenter: Robert H. Briggs, Fullerton, California
Abstract: In this session, Robert Briggs explores violence against the Mormons in the frontier settings of western Missouri and western Illinois. How similar was it to Lynch Law and Regulator-style violence once often found in rural settings where effective law enforcement and court systems were lacking? How well did it match patterns in England and the rest of America in terms of the cultural notion of “affairs of honor” and “honor violence”? Were the Mormon expulsions really that different from those we find throughout the histories of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries?
The full program and registration form is available here.
Thoughts, as someone who lives in TGSOT:
1. It’s being held in a private home in Plano, because (a) the only people in Texas who generally would attend a Sunstone conference all live in Plano and (b) the number of people in Plano interested would all fit in a private home (cue the Roseanne Barr-Jew growing up in SLC-synagogue in a Photomat joke). Although – one could also observe that there are private homes in Plano larger than LDS stake centers. I don’t know exactly where Mossycup Oak Drive is, but it’s near a golf course in Plano, so I’m guessing it’s at least as large as the Dallas temple (which is not hard to do).
2. There’s actually a session entitled “Catching up with Todd Compton”? That’s kind of personality cult-ish. What, Quinn is too busy to take in a trip and eat good brisket?
3. Obviously, the organizers forget that the better half of “Dallas” is commonly known as Ft. Worth, and they should have marketed it as such!
4. Jokes aside, I think the Jolley and Anderson sessions look very interesting.
5. Finally, I’m kicking myself because I will be in Utah visiting the in-laws over 3/18.
Comment by queuno — March 4, 2006 @ 9:28 pm