Table of Contents
Introduction xi
Part I Foundations and Paradoxes in Mormon Cultural Origins
1 The Iron Rod and the Liahona: Authority and Radical Freedom 3
2 The Endless Quest and Perfect Knowledge: Searching and Certainty 21
3 Everlasting Burnings and Cinder Blocks: The Sacred and the Banal 37
4 Peculiar People and Loneliness at the Top: Election and Exile 53
Part II The Varieties of Mormon Cultural Expression
Beginnings (1830-1890): The Dancing Puritans
5 "The Glory of God Is Intelligence": Mormons and the Life of the Mind 65
6 "Zion Shall Be Built": Architecture and City Planning 101
7 "No Music in Hell": Music and Dance 117
8 "On a Cannibal Island": Theater 143
9 "Novels Rather than Nothing": Literature 157
10 "A Goodly Portion of Painters and Artists": Visual Arts 179
Part III The Varieties of Mormon Cultural Expression
A Movable Zion (1890-Present): Pioneer Nostalgia and Beyond the American Religion
11 "Fomenting the Pot": The Life of the Mind 195
12 "A Uniform Look for the Church": Architecture 241
13 "No Tabernacle Choir on Broadway": Music and Dance 253
14 "Cinema as Sacrament": Theater and Film 265
15 "To the Fringes of Faith": Literature 285
16 "Painting the Mormon Story": Visual Arts 325
Conclusion: "Through the Particular to the Universal" 339
Notes 345
Index 397