Sara M Patterson
Biographic Data
| ID | 1017952 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sara M Patterson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sara M |
| FAMILY NAME | Patterson |
| SIGNATURE | PATTERSON S M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hanover College |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Absent Objects and the Study of Material Religion
This article explores how absent objects continue to work on religious communities using two case studies: the gold plates from which Joseph Smith said he translated the Book of Mormon, and the first 116 manuscript pages of that translation. Neither of these objects are available to believers now, but they played and continue to play an outsized role in the early history of the Mormon tradition, but in different ways. Based on these case studies,…
Mormonism's First Bad Girl
Why has Lucy Harris been blamed for the loss of 116 pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript? Analysis of storytelling about Lucy Harris, Mormonism's first "bad girl," allows us to see the creation of one element of the Latter-day Saint chain of memory. Through the accretion of stories about Lucy Harris, church members came to code doubt as feminine in Mormon memory while viewing the concept of witness as masculine. These understandings of the rela…
For time and eternity
Queer exclusion from the Mormon Plan of Salvation causes both this worldly and eternal theological concerns for many LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints. In this essay, we take up questions regarding the embodied nature of personal revelation within Mormonism to understand the ways that LGBTQ+ Mormons in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have resituated and reconfigured authority and divine truth. Drawing on archival records from the Mormo…
Abusing Religion
In an article in The Atlantic on December 16, 2020, journalist McKay Coppins recalls his struggle “to cultivate a reputation that sanded off the edges of [his young Mormon] orthodoxy.” “At school, I laughed along when the boys in the cafeteria asked me how many moms I had,” Coppins writes. He “didn’t drink, but . . . was happy to be the designated driver. [He] didn’t smoke pot, but . . . would never narc.” Coppins suggests that his own struggle t…
Disenchanted Lives
Book Review| January 01 2020 Disenchanted Lives: Apostasy and Ex-Mormonism among the Latter-day Saints E. Marshall Brooks. Disenchanted Lives: Apostasy and Ex-Mormonism among the Latter-day Saints. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018. Sara M. Patterson Sara M. Patterson Reviewed by Sara M. Patterson is a professor of theological studies at Hanover College. Her next book, Pioneers in the Attic: Place and Memory along the Mormon Trail…
The Plymouth Rock of the American West
This paper examines how Utah’s 1947 This Is The Place Monument functioned in two contradictory ways: First, it confirmed the Mormon narrative of their entry into the Salt Lake Valley as a mythic narrative about a chosen people entering into their promised land. Second, it reinforced Mormonism as one among many traditions participating in the civil religion of Utah and the American West. In its exploration of these contradictory impulses, the pape…
Mormon Masculinity
During the period from 1890 to 1920, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) perceived a crisis in the lives of their boys. Like their Protestant contemporaries, Latter-day Saints spent much time attempting to find a solution. At the same time, the LDS church was experiencing its own unique set of upheavals. In 1890, one of the central tenets of Mormonism – polygamy – had to be replaced with sexual practices that aligned …
Race, Religion, Region
Journal Article Race, Religion, Region: Landscapes of Encounter in the American West Get access Race, Religion, Region: Landscapes of Encounter in the American West. Edited by Botham Fay Patterson Sara M.. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2006. ix + 190 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $40.00.) Douglas Firth Anderson Douglas Firth Anderson Northwestern College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Sch…
Mormon Masculinity
During the period from 1890 to 1920, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) perceived a crisis in the lives of their boys. Like their Protestant contemporaries, Latter-day Saints spent much time attempting to find a solution. At the same time, the LDS church was experiencing its own unique set of upheavals. In 1890, one of the central tenets of Mormonism – polygamy – had to be replaced with sexual practices that aligned …
Mormonism's First Bad Girl
Why has Lucy Harris been blamed for the loss of 116 pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript? Analysis of storytelling about Lucy Harris, Mormonism's first "bad girl," allows us to see the creation of one element of the Latter-day Saint chain of memory. Through the accretion of stories about Lucy Harris, church members came to code doubt as feminine in Mormon memory while viewing the concept of witness as masculine. These understandings of the rela…
Race, Religion, Region
Journal Article Race, Religion, Region: Landscapes of Encounter in the American West Get access Race, Religion, Region: Landscapes of Encounter in the American West. Edited by Botham Fay Patterson Sara M.. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2006. ix + 190 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $40.00.) Douglas Firth Anderson Douglas Firth Anderson Northwestern College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Sch…
Mormon Masculinity
During the period from 1890 to 1920, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) perceived a crisis in the lives of their boys. Like their Protestant contemporaries, Latter-day Saints spent much time attempting to find a solution. At the same time, the LDS church was experiencing its own unique set of upheavals. In 1890, one of the central tenets of Mormonism – polygamy – had to be replaced with sexual practices that aligned …
The Plymouth Rock of the American West
This paper examines how Utah’s 1947 This Is The Place Monument functioned in two contradictory ways: First, it confirmed the Mormon narrative of their entry into the Salt Lake Valley as a mythic narrative about a chosen people entering into their promised land. Second, it reinforced Mormonism as one among many traditions participating in the civil religion of Utah and the American West. In its exploration of these contradictory impulses, the pape…
Disenchanted Lives
Book Review| January 01 2020 Disenchanted Lives: Apostasy and Ex-Mormonism among the Latter-day Saints E. Marshall Brooks. Disenchanted Lives: Apostasy and Ex-Mormonism among the Latter-day Saints. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018. Sara M. Patterson Sara M. Patterson Reviewed by Sara M. Patterson is a professor of theological studies at Hanover College. Her next book, Pioneers in the Attic: Place and Memory along the Mormon Trail…
For time and eternity
Queer exclusion from the Mormon Plan of Salvation causes both this worldly and eternal theological concerns for many LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints. In this essay, we take up questions regarding the embodied nature of personal revelation within Mormonism to understand the ways that LGBTQ+ Mormons in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have resituated and reconfigured authority and divine truth. Drawing on archival records from the Mormo…
Abusing Religion
In an article in The Atlantic on December 16, 2020, journalist McKay Coppins recalls his struggle “to cultivate a reputation that sanded off the edges of [his young Mormon] orthodoxy.” “At school, I laughed along when the boys in the cafeteria asked me how many moms I had,” Coppins writes. He “didn’t drink, but . . . was happy to be the designated driver. [He] didn’t smoke pot, but . . . would never narc.” Coppins suggests that his own struggle t…
Mormonism's First Bad Girl
Why has Lucy Harris been blamed for the loss of 116 pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript? Analysis of storytelling about Lucy Harris, Mormonism's first "bad girl," allows us to see the creation of one element of the Latter-day Saint chain of memory. Through the accretion of stories about Lucy Harris, church members came to code doubt as feminine in Mormon memory while viewing the concept of witness as masculine. These understandings of the rela…
Absent Objects and the Study of Material Religion
This article explores how absent objects continue to work on religious communities using two case studies: the gold plates from which Joseph Smith said he translated the Book of Mormon, and the first 116 manuscript pages of that translation. Neither of these objects are available to believers now, but they played and continue to play an outsized role in the early history of the Mormon tradition, but in different ways. Based on these case studies,…
Mormonism, Religion, and History (6 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Art (4 works) · History (4 works) · Archaeology and Natural History (3 works) · Psychology (3 works) · Religious studies (3 works)