2008 Sunstone Symposium Preview
Pardon the (brief) interruption to the gay marriage discussions.
I wanted to direct your attention to the revised version of the 2008 Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium preliminary program posted on the Sunstone web site. At this writing, the symposium is 16 days away. There’s a lot of work to do and much to look forward to! I hope you’ll make plans to join us August 6-9.
The symposium has a fantastic line up this year! I can’t take credit, since most of the program came together under Dan’s supervision. We’re grateful to have so many new and returning participants and a wide variety of topics up for discussion. We hope there will be a session to whet every appetite.
We have some terrific evening sessions—Wade Clark Roof’s opening lecture on Generations and Religion; a screening of the phenomenal film, Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons; the spiritual high of the annual Pillars of My Faith session, and the delightful Levi Peterson paying his respects to Sunstone and Dialogue at our Saturday night banquet.
I’m looking forward to the three Mapping Mormon Issues sessions, based on articles written for Sunstone and designed to introduce foundational issues in Mormon studies. Our authors will discuss their research on the Book of Mormon historicity and translation debates and the doctrine of human deification.
Other session titles that caught my attention:
• Ecclesia Mortis: Why Are Church Meetings So Boring?
• Sex and the Young Mormon Soul
• They Leave the Church, But They Cannot Leave the Church Alone: The Psychology of Apostasy
• Is Mormonism Too American?
• Mormon Motherhood: Choice of Destiny?
• What Should Wives Really Know?, Saturday’s lunchtime comedy session
If you’ve had a chance to look at the preliminary program, what sessions are you most looking forward to and why?
July 21st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
As usual, more sessions interest me than I can possibly catch due to scheduling conflicts. A couple that jump out (my comments in italics):
Panel. Learning to Speak and Listen Past Generational Boundaries. (great topic, one I’ve thought about a lot)
“The Group”: LDS Hippie Culture and Drug Recovery (sounds “trippy” man)
Panel: Beyond Deconstruction and Apologetics: How Can Historians Construct a New Faithful History that is Fiathful to History? (fascinating to see the way LDS history and apologetics have unfolded over the past 50 years…)
Ecclesia Mortis: Why are Church Meetins so Boring (I dig the title.)
A Mormon Environmental Ethic For and From the Rising Generation (let’s hope so)
Autobiography, Trauma, Testimony, and Confession (always enjoy hearing what H. Welker has to say)
Panel. Why We Stay (always good)
Panel. Does the BYU “Honor Code” Honor Mormon Values? (my answer to the question: I have my doubts. Will be interesting to see what the panelists have to say.)
“My Soul Delighteth in Planness” (always enjoy Jeff Needle)
Seeing Joseph Through Jesus’s Eyes (always enjoy Bill Russell)
We’ll Make the Air With Music Ring! (always enjoy Kristine Haglund)
Note: the above three sections run concurrently. Boo. Hiss.
Panel. Raise Up A Child in the Way She Should Go… and Which Way is That? (my answer to the question: beats me… I hope to find out from the panelists)
Whether There Be One God or Many: A Unified Interpretation of Joseph Smith’s God Concepts (always enjoy Paul Toscano)
And many others… just no time to list them all.
July 21st, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I’m looking forward to Becky Linford’s comedy at lunch on Saturday- and many of the same ones Matt listed.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:31 am
I’m looking forward to Don Bradley’s piece on BoM translation, Elizabeth Quick’s on Emma Smith as shaman, Brian Hales’ on sexuality in JS’s plural marriages, “Is Mormonism Too American”, “The New God Argument”, and of course to presenting my own paper, “Joseph Smith in Hermeneutical Crisis”.
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Can I make a plea for any of you who sing to please, please come to my session. If you ask nicely, I’ll even give you music ahead of time. It will be lots more fun if we have a few strong singers on each part to lean on.
(And if you’re not a singer, come anyway!)
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Kristine, I’ve been looking forward to your session–can I have the music, please? I can sing alto if I run through it in advance. clbruno at hotmail
July 24th, 2008 at 7:58 am
I was up until midnight mapping out my itinerary. I’m still thinking I might just fly in at lunchtime Thursday so I can get some work in, but not sure. Here’s my list, which will probably change if I’m sufficiently compelled by friends:
* Learning to Speak and Listen Past Generational Boundaries - panel
* Community of Christ: Identity, Message, and Mission - Susan Skoor
* Beyond Deconstruction and Apologetics - panel
* Nobody Knows - film screening
* hmmmm, the Friday 8:45 session is a tough one. Ecclesia Mortis, Three Real Dangers, and Sixteenth-Note Panic all sound good
* A Mormon Environmental Ethic…
* Why We Stay
* Stories from the Borderlands
* Crisis of Faith Among Faithful Mormon Intellectuals
* What Women Know (the BYU Honor Code thing sounds good, too)
* Pillars of My Faith (this is my first Sunstone, but I’ve listened to about 20 different Pillars sessions, a must-attend)
* Seeing Joseph Through Jesus Eyes
* Saturday at 10am is another really tough one. Is the Mormon Church Still Racist?, Psychology of Apostacy, and Proclaiming the Family all sound really good
* Raise Up a Child (Shaken Faith Syndrome sounds interesting, but probably only to get annoyed by the premise)
* The lunchtime comedy thing sounds fun
* This I Believe (Looking Forward panel sounds cool)
* Mormons and the Iraq War, and the panel on California’s SSM Battle are running concurrently
* The Expression of Spirituality of the Rising Gay Generation
I will probably need to fly back home too early to go to the Peterson banquet.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Kristine, please send music.
July 27th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
This is my first Symposium and I’m very excited. A few sessions that really caught my eye for relevance to my life, and because they seem to address some interesting topics are:
Three Dangers to LDS Members
Why We Stay
End of Life and Mormonism
Adventures in DNA
Pyschology of Apostasy
Stay or Go?
La Vida Online
July 28th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I also look forward to attending and speaking at the Symposium. _Adventures in DNA_ will be about exploring new frontiers in historical research.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Dang, I’ve seen _Nobody Knows_ way too many times, but I am extremely interested in hearing Connell O’Donovan (he’s actually my long-lost brother, a you will see when you put us side by side) and Patrick A. Polk. I’ve read Conn’s work and am extremely impressed. And from what I hear, Polk has some extraordinary material about the guy who had a huge impact on race issues in Mormonism: William McCary.