Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism Contributor(s): Coviello, Peter (Author) |
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ISBN: 022647433X ISBN-13: 9780226474335 Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions Published: November 2019 Click for more in this series: Class 200: New Studies in Religion |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Religion | Christianity - Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints (mormon) - Religion | Christian Living - Social Issues - History | United States - 19th Century |
Dewey: 289.373 |
LCCN: 2019024283 |
Series: Class 200: New Studies in Religion |
Physical Information: 0.8" H x 6" W x 8.9" L (1.01 lbs) 304 pages |
Themes: - Religious Orientation - Christian - Religious Orientation - Mormonism/Lds - Chronological Period - 19th Century |
Features: Bibliography, Index |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: From the perspective of Protestant America, nineteenth-century Mormons were the victims of a peculiar zealotry, a population deranged--socially, sexually, even racially--by the extravagances of belief they called "religion." Make Yourselves Gods offers a counter-history of early Mormon theology and practice, tracking the Saints from their emergence as a dissident sect to their renunciation of polygamy at century's end. Over these turbulent decades, Mormons would appear by turns as heretics, sex-radicals, refugees, anti-imperialists, colonizers, and, eventually, reluctant monogamists and enfranchised citizens. Reading Mormonism through a synthesis of religious history, political theology, native studies, and queer theory, Peter Coviello deftly crafts a new framework for imagining orthodoxy, citizenship, and the fate of the flesh in nineteenth-century America. What emerges is a story about the violence, wild beauty, and extravagant imaginative power of this era of Mormonism--an impassioned book with a keen interest in the racial history of sexuality and the unfinished business of American secularism. |
Contributor Bio(s): Coviello, Peter: - Peter Coviello is professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His books include Tomorrow's Parties: Sex and the Untimely in Nineteenth-Century America and Long Players: A Love Story in Eighteen Songs. |
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