The recently opened exhibition of work by Maynard Dixon, I told Sam as we walked in, offers food for the soul. On loan from the Smithsonian, for instance, one painting explores the dimensions of fear. Among the treasures, another painting … Continue reading
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Thinking this morning about Cecilia Konchar Farr and our years (too few of them) together at BYU. After she and Tracy moved on to Minnesota and Saint Catherine University, she published a wonderful book about Oprah’s Book Club, another book … Continue reading
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Joanna Brooks’ Mormonism and White Supremacy: American Religion and the Problem of Racial Innocence (Oxford University Press, 2020) has given me new ways to think about Steven Epperson’s review of McConkie’s and Millet’s book Our Destiny and BYU’s subsequent investigation and decision to fire … Continue reading
A couple of years ago, poet, translator, and critic Kimberly Johnson organized a conference at Brigham Young University on Devotional Poetry. Poet Susan Howe suggested that Kimberly invite me to introduce their keynote speaker, Mark Jarman, who had been a … Continue reading
In an appeal, I responded to the denial of promotion: The university representative has argued that I am a bad citizen because I used the word unctuous in reference to hires of nonscholars and because I called BYU sanctimonious, but he doesn’t address … Continue reading
A headline in the Salt Lake Tribune this morning: Mormon church wins full recognition in Vietnam, sees chance for growth When I was a student at BYU in the late 1960’s, this eventuality was prophesied. The full account is included in … Continue reading
The LDS excommunication of Kate Kelly this week and the threatened disciplinary actions against others thought to be insufficiently orthodox has reminded me, as it has others, of actions taken against several of my BYU colleagues in the mid 1990s. … Continue reading
I just read Susan Howe’s new book of poetry, Salt—for the second time. It is a remarkable exploration of love and death and sex and marriage and aging and God and salt—not necessarily in that order and not neatly separated by … Continue reading
The title promises wild rides and wildflowers; the subtitle announces philosophy and botany with bikes. I’ll let the authors introduce those topics themselves. My task is to provide a little context, especially from the year preceding the events of this … Continue reading
THE GOALIE'S ANXIETY 