Information about The Association for Mormon Letters

1976

First Annual Symposium

Morning Session

1. Leonard Arrington, "The Mormon Heritage of Vardis Fisher"
2. Bruce Jorgensen, "Heritage of Hostility: The Mormon Attack on Fiction in the Nineteenth Century"
3. Richard Cracroft, "Bishop Potts and Elder Dunbar: Max Adeler's Much-Married Mormons."
4. Richard Cummings, "Tension: Mormon Literature Facing Its Time,"

Afternoon Session

1. Davis Bitton, "Writings Engendered by the Martyrdom of Joseph Smith"
2. "Being a Mormon and a Poet"
   • Emma Lou Thayne
   • Arthur Henry King
   • John S. Harris

1977

Second Annual Symposium

Aspects of Mormon Fiction

1. Ed Geary, "Mormondom's Lost Generation: The Novelists of the 1940s."
2. George Tate, Halldor Laxness: The Mormons and the Promised Land."
3. Bruce Jorgensen, "The Life and Writing of David L. Wright."

Personal Literature

1. Elaine Burnham, "The Orally-Told Tales About Solomon Henry Hale."
2. Steven P. Sondrup, "The Literary Dimensions of Mormon Autobiography"
3. Mary Bradford, "I, Eye, Aye: The Personal Essay in Mormon Literature"

1978

Third Annual Symposium

The Search for Self in Mormon Letters

1. Maureen U. Beecher, The Diary and the Autobiography of Eliza Roxey Snow: A Study in Three Genres
2. Lavina Fielding Anderson: The Identity Crisis in L.D.S. Missionary Fiction
3. Davis Bitton, Utah's Thoreau: Claude T. Barnes

Luncheon Speaker: Neal A. Lambert

The Mormon Novel, Folklore, and Moral Criticism

1. William Wilson, "Folklore in The Giant Joshua"
2. Richard Cracroft, "Samuel Taylor's Heaven Knows Why"
3. Stephen L. Tanner, "A Moral Approach to Literary Criticism"

1979

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

1. Richard Rust, "'All Things Which Have Been Given of God...Are the Typifying of Him': Typology in the Book of Mormon"
2. Neal E. Lambert, "A Sense of Place in Mormon Literature"
3. Chris Arrington, "The Women's Movement and the Literature of Religion"
4. Steven P. Sondrup, "The Psalm of Nephi: A Lyric Reading"
5. Tony Kimball, "The Process of Living: C.S. Lewis as a 'Guide of the Perplexed'"

Fourth Annual Symposium

The Book of Mormon as Literature

1. Mark Thomas, "Lehi's Dream: An American Apocalypse"
2. Steven C. Walker, "More Than Meets the Eye: Book of Mormon Concentration"
3. Clifton Holt Jolley, "Rhetorical Evidence for Claiming Moroni as a Tragic Protagonist"

   Luncheon Speaker: Richard J. Cummings, "Some Reflections on the Mormon Identity Crisis"

Theme and Character in Mormon Fiction

1. Elouise M. Bell, "'(Almost) All is Well': Thematic Sophistication as an Index of Quality in Short Stories by L.D.S. Student Writers"
2. Bruce W. Jorgensen, "'Herself Moving Beside Herself, Out There Alone': The Shape of Mormon Belief in Virginia Sorensen's The Evening and the Morning Star"
3. Linda Sillitoe, "'The Upstream Swimmers': Female Rebels as Protagonists in Mormon Novels"

1980

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

1. Bruce Young, "Emerson, Thoreau, and Mormonism"
2. Eleanor Hart, "Confession as Discovery: An Examination of the Confession Art Form of Two Mormon Pioneer Journals"
3. Ellen Knight, "'Deseret; or, A Saint's Affliction,' An American Opera."
4. Susan Howe, "The Use of 'Cultural Myth' in Universalizing Mormon Fiction"
5. Karen Lynn, "Sensational Virtue: Anti-Polygamy Fiction and American Popular Culture"
6. Nicolas Shumway, "Art and Worship: Towards a Theoretical Accommodation"

Fifth Annual Symposium

Morning Session

1. Marilyn Arnold, "Prospects for the New Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature"
2. John D. Peters, "An Occupation for the Saint: A Mormon View of T.S. Eliot's Religious Poetry"
3. Marden Clark, "The More Perfect Order Within: Being the Confession of an Unregenerate but not Unrepentant Mistruster of Mormon Literature"

Luncheon Speaker: Eugene England

Afternoon Session

1. Linda Sillitoe, Contemporary Poems by Mormon Woemn: New Voices, New Songs"
2. Levi S. Peterson: "Lambent Voices: Recent Mormon Fiction"

1981

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

1. Robert Wood, "The Philosophy of States and the Forms of Government: The Mormon Position"
2. Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, "Mormons in Science Fiction"
3. Susan Howe, "Progress Report: Exponent II"
4. Marlene Payne, "Archetypes and Mythology: Connections with Mormon Thought"
5. Donna Hill, "How and Why I Wrote Joseph Smith: The First Mormon""

1982

Sixth Annual Symposium

Note: Beginning in 1982, the annual symposium moved to late January-early February of each year

Session on Mormons and Critical Theory

1. Bruce Harper, "Mormons and Modern Literary Theory"
2. James E. Faulconer, "An Alternative to Aristotelian Criticism"
3. Stephen W. Durrant, "Lessons from Chinese Criticism"
4. James E. Ford, "Interesting Critical Times: The Moral Implications of Post-Structuralism"

Session on Mormon Literature

1. Roger Miller, "Whoso Readeth, Let Him Understand: Latter-day Scripture and the Problem of Translation"
2. Gloria Cronin, "Grace and Isolation: A Thematic Examination of Eileen Kump's Bread and Milk and Other Stories"
3. Steven C. Walker and Lorna Nielsen Best, A Reading from the Poetry of Clinton F. Larson
4. John B. Harris, "The Poetry of Clinton F. Larson"

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

Friday (Faneuil Hall)

• Exponent II (Nancy Dredge, Linda Collins, Susan Paxman)
• Benson Institute Newsletter (Kevin Barnhurst
• Dialogue (Eugene England, Mary Bradford, Lavina Fielding Anderson)
• Sunstone (Lori Winder)

Saturday (Cambridge Ward chapel)

1. Brian Ward, "The Privileged Criteria in Literary Evaluation"
2. Nicolas Shumway, "The God Within"
3. Tony Kimball, "The Mirror of Stupidity: Mormon Political Writing"
4. Mary Bradford, "'The State of the Union': 'Dialogue' and Mormon Writing."

1983

Seventh Annual Symposium

Perspectives on RLDS Literature

1. Paul M. Edwards, "Moonbeams from a Larger Lunacy: RLDS Poetry"
2. Karen Lynn, "RLDS Hymns"

Presidential Address: Lavina Fielding Anderson, "Making the Good Good for Something"

First Afternoon Session

1. Mick McAllister, "Vardis Fisher's Mormon Heritage"
2. Ted Lyon, "A Grandfather's Poetry: John Lyon"

Second Afternoon Session

1. Roy Bird, "Marxism, Mormonism, and Aesthetic Standards"
2. Cherry Silver, "Patient Griseldas and Cinderella Heroes"

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

Session One: Philosophical Hall

1. Eugene England, "Are Mormon Women Freer than Men under the Patriarchy: The Evidence of Mormon Literature"
2. Panel Response:
   • Claudia Bushman
   • Eloise Bell
   • Mary Bradford
   • JoAnn Younge
   • Susan Howe

Session Two: Housten Hall, University of Pennsylvania

1. Susan B. Taber, "Editorial Structure and Unity in The Book of Mormon"

West Coast (Fall) Symposium

Session One: Language, Perception, and Personality

1. Chris Conkling, "One-and-only-truth vs. Philosophical Pluralism in Mormon Life and Letters"
2. Irene Bates, "Mormon Letters--The Other Kind"
3. Nicolas Shumway, "Truth and Language in the Judeo-Christian Tradition"

Session Two: "What Makes Religion News"

Session Three: Historical Perspectives

1. Valeria Franco, "The Mormon Collection at the Huntington"
2. Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, "'On Subjects Not Disclosed': An Interlinear to the Diaries of Eliza R. Snow"
3. Grant Underwood, "'Saved or Damned': Tracing a Persistent Protestantism in Early Mormon Thought"
4. [reading by Steven P. Sondrup] Levi Peterson, "Road to Damascus"
5. Gloria Cronin, "Levi Peterson's Development as a Writer"

   Session Four: Mormon Hymns and Children's Songs: High Church to High Comedy"

   Ruth Rees, Karen Lynn

1984

Eighth Annual Symposium

Session One: The Literature of Immigration

1. Margaret Rampton Munk
2. William Mulder
3. Frederick S. Buchanan

Session Two: Mormon Women Writers

1. Cherry and Barnard Silver, "The Poetry of Madelyn Cannon Stewart"
2. Neila Seshachari, "Confrontation vs. Tradition: The Lives of Trapped Women in Maurine Whipple's The Giant Joshua"
3. Linda Wilcox, "Contemporary Writing on Motherhood by Mormon Women"
4. Gloria Cronin, "Contemporary Mormon Folklore: Two Female Folk Performers"
5. Annette Sorensen Rogers, commentary

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1. LuDene Dallimore, "Mercy, Zina, and Kate: Virginia Sorensen's Strong Women in a Man's Society"
2. Edward A. Geary, Joseph and His Brothers: Rivalry in Virginia Sorensen's On This Star
3. Audrey M. Godfrey, "The Promise Is Fulfilled: Literary Aspects of John D. Fitzgerald's Novels
4. Helynne H. Hansen, "In Search of Women's Language and Feminist Expression Among Nauvoo Wives in A Little Lower Than the Angels
5. John S. Harris, "Risk and Terror"
6. Robert M. Hogge, "Levels of Perception in Michael Fillerup's Visions and Other Stories
7. Susan Elizabeth Howe, "Little Books From a Large Soul: The Private Poetry of Virginia Sorensen"
8. Derk Michael Koldewyn, "Though Like the Wanderer": Outside the Group in Mormon Short Fiction
9. Neal W. Kramer, "Reading Mormon Stories: An Ethical Dilemma?"
10. Mick McAllister, "Embracing the Other: The Beloved Alien and Other Ethical Fictions of Orson Scott Card"
11. MaryJan Gay Munger, "A Look at Contemporary Mormon Poetry: One Harvester's Opinion
12. Marian Nelson, "Drinking, and Flirting with the Mormon Church"
13. Steven L. Olsen, "Abridging the Records of the Zoramite Mission: Mormon as Historian"
14. "Domesticity and the Call to Art: A Panel"
    • Julie J. Nichols
    • Gail Newbold
    • Lisa Orme Bickmore
    • Margaret Blair Young
    • Bruce W. Jorgensen

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

Session I: The Mormon Literary Family and Literary Ecology

1. John Bennion, "Esther Anne and Me: An Essay into Boundaries"
2. John Needham, "Unable to Hide in the Certainty Anymore: Phyllis Barber's _How I Got Cultured_ as Literary Family Album"
3. Janet Garrard Willis, "Dessert Phoenix"
4. Brandie Siegfried, "Thoughts on an Ecology of Meditation"

Session II: A Diverse Gathering of Mormon Poets (Readings)

• Robert Christmas
• Robert Hogge
• Lance Larsen
• Scott Samuelson

Session III: "I'll Take Mormon Potpourri for 200, Alex": Folklore, Theatre, and Popular Culture

• Kristi Bell, "Is Dating One Big Jack Weyland Novel?"
• David Allred, "Reflections and Deflections: Austin and Alta Fife and Mormon Ethnography"
• Melinda Mathes Wolfer, "Po-Mo-Mo(rmonism):The Quintessence of Samuelsenism"
• Eric Samuelsen, "Typically Mormon: Neil Labute, Johnny Whitaker, Donny and Marie and the Mormonizing of Popular Culture"

Session IV: A Critical Culture

• Carolynne Durland, "When Athens and Jerusalem Meet: How A Mormon Should Read 'Whole Other Bodies'"
• Richard Y. Thurman, "A Most Remarkable Work: R. Paul Cracroft's A Certain Testimony: A Mormon Epic"
• Gideon Burton, "The Unerasable Mormonism of Lance Larsen's Erasable Walls"
• Richard Cracroft, "Samuel Woolley Taylor: Mormon (Literary)Maverick"
• Harlow Clark, "Those Who Hunger and Thirst after Writeousness"

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