On Being Human: Folklore of Mormon Missionaries
()
About this ebook
William Wilson
I am an applied anthropologist working at a University. I teach historical fencing and am interested in living history. I write books on historical fencing and in 2012 started writing fiction for publication. I am pursuing some ideas for books in the steampunk genre.
Read more from William Wilson
Gobbledygook: A Dictionary That's 2/3 Accurate, 1/3 Nonsense - And 100% Up to You to Decide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrain Drain: How Highly Processed Food Depletes Your Brain of Neurotransmitters, the Key Chemicals It Needs to Properly Function Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHolographic Data Storage: From Theory to Practical Systems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarrow of Human Experience, The: Essays on Folklore by William A. Wilson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOnly a Fortnight: 30 Years On Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGot Relationships?: Improve Them With ThirtyOneAnothers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter The Collapse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCisco Networks: Engineers' Handbook of Routing, Switching, and Security with IOS, NX-OS, and ASA Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to On Being Human
Related ebooks
Emotional and Priestly Logic of Plural Marriage, The Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBetween Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5"A Peculiar People": Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5What's True in Mormon Folklore?: The Contribution of Folklore to Mormon Studies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPost-Manifesto Polygamy: The 1899 to 1904 Correspondence of Helen, Owen and Avery Woodruff Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFolklore in Utah: A History and Guide to Resources Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Mountain of Paper: The Extraordinary Diary of Leonard James Arrington Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollected Leonard J Arrington Mormon History Lectures Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beneath These Red Cliffs: An Ethnohistory of the Utah Paiutes Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Widow's Tale, A: 1884-1896 Diary of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings"Those Who Labor for My Happiness": Slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Binding Earth and Heaven: Patriarchal Blessings in the Prophetic Development of Early Mormonism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPredicting the Past: The Utah War's Twenty-First Century Future Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reconsidering No Man Knows My History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Worth Their Salt Too: More Notable But Often Unnoted Women of Utah Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Frontier Religion: Mormons and America, 1857–1907 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Kingdom Transformed: Early Mormonism and the Modern LDS Church, New Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Defender: The Life of Daniel H. Wells Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDisenchanted Lives: Apostasy and Ex-Mormonism among the Latter-day Saints Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAshamed of Joseph: Mormon Foundations Crumble Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRexburg Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuccession in the Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaints of Sage & Saddle: Folklore Among the Mormons Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA New Witness for God (Vol. 1-3): Study on Mormon Church and the Book of Mormon (Complete Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShoshonean Peoples and the Overland Trail: Frontiers of the Utah Superintendency of Indian Affairs, 1849–1869 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Awkward State of Utah: Coming of Age in the Nation, 1896-1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social Science For You
Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Men Explain Things to Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slaves in the Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Close Encounters with Addiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for On Being Human
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
On Being Human - William Wilson
ON BEING HUMAN
The Folklore of Mormon Missionaries
by
William A. Wilson
64th Faculty Honor Lecture
Utah State University
Logan, Utah
Copyright ©1981 Utah State University Press
All rights reserved
Utah State University Press
Logan, Utah 84322-3078
www.USUpress.org
Manufactured in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-0-87421-114-6 (paper)
ISBN: 978-0-87421-833-6 (e-book)
ON BEING HUMAN
The Folklore of Mormon Missionaries
Only a week before I received the invitation to write this introduction, two faculty members who are team-teaching an introductory class about world arts and cultures queried me. Their course concerns concepts and perspectives in the intercultural, interdisciplinary study of art, aesthetics, and performance. Among other matters, it examines the performative representation of cultural identity. The instructors sought articles outside their own fields that students should read. Immediately I recommended William A. (Bert) Wilson’s On Being Human: The Folklore of Mormon Missionaries.
It deals as much with behavior, performance, and culture as it does with the lore of a particular religious identity. The piece is imminently readable; Bert is a marvelous storyteller and a fine writer. Based on a huge quantity of recorded data, personal experience, and years of reflection, this essay contains numerous insights about the nature of narrating and its impact on people’s emotions, behavior, and interactions.
I met Bert Wilson at Indiana University. He was completing his graduate studies in the Folklore Department as I was beginning mine. His book Folklore and Nationalism in Modern Finland (1976a), which grew out of his dissertation, remains the best study of the use of folklore in nationalistic movements. When we first met we talked about his interest in Mormon folklore. He was dissatisfied with earlier works. Either the publications consisted largely of documentation without analysis or, written by outsiders, the interpretations were inadequate and inappropriate. As a practicing Mormon, Bert has an emic
or insider view of the traditions. He was a missionary to Finland. He has participated in some of the lore that he reports and analyzes in his publications.
Two major streams of scholarship appear to have influenced Bert’s interpretation of the traditions presented here. One is a behavioral perspective, which embraces a performance studies approach. When he writes about stories being framed with beginning and closing markers and with a stylized manner of performance (including gestures, rhythmical speech, shifts in intonation, and ceremonial language), he draws upon ideas propounded by Roger Abrahams, Richard Bauman, and others who (like Bert himself) contributed to the analysis of verbal art as performance. When he dwells on "the telling of a story during which the narrator and listener together shape the form and meaning, and on the unique circumstances in which the narrating occurs, he relies largely on the work of Robert A. Georges, who helped develop a behavioral orientation in folkloristics. This perspective eschews the study of
texts in favor of concentrating on communication and social experience in the context of specific events. A result is the greater understanding of expressive behavior as, in Bert’s words,
an artful rendering of significant human