If one wants to see what Mormon Studies is like, consider the following paper from the 2011 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion held in San Francisco:
Scripting, Performing, Testifying: Giving Faithful
"Seximony" through
The Mormon Vagina
Monologues
You might think that the title was deliberately provocative but the content was mild. So
here is the abstract:
Abstract: In 2001, a group of Mormon women scripted
what came to be known at the
Mormon Vagina
Monologues
and presented their monologues at the annual
Sunstone magazine conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Using this public forum to express extremely private experiences, the women not only critiqued the Mormon Church
patriarchy, but also used essential elements of the
Mormon faith — those of testimony, scripture, and
personal
revelation — to envision a Church more accepting of
sexual differences. Using methodological approaches from
Mormon studies, feminist studies of religion, and performance studies, this paper argues that the
Mormon Vagina
Monologues
exploited an inherent ambivalence in the LDS relationship between priesthood authority and personal
authority. A number of monologues are examined, including pieces dealing with sacred undergarments, female
masturbation, eternal marriage and the celestial kingdom, and the personal and theological struggles of male-to-female transsexual Latter-day Saints.
Perhaps the presentation was by some nut out of the mainstream. No, Jill Peterfeso was affiliated with the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Guilford College, a job this presentation no doubt helped her secure. But surely, this presentation was given in one of the AAR's wierd sections. No, this was presented in the Mormon Studies Consultation. This is mainstream Mormon Studies.
