User:Hydrangeans/draft of Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism

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Hydrangeans/draft of Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism
AuthorPeter Coviello
SeriesClass 200: New Studies in Religion
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
Publication date
2019
Media typePrint
Pages304
ISBN978-0-226-47433-5

Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism is a 2019 nonfiction book by literary scholar Peter Coviello. The book articulates an assessment of secularism in the United States through what Coviello calls a "counter history" of Mormonism, particularly focused around the Book of Mormon, the religion's central text, and its practice (and later abandonment) of religious polygamy. []

Background[edit]

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Content[edit]

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Make Yourselves Gods works within a Foucaultian perspective, while adopting some "post-Foucaultian developments that pay attention to the mutual entanglement of sexuality with race", gender studies scholar Taylor Petrey explains.[1]

Most of Make Yourselves Gods's treatment of biopolitics focuses on the early-nineteenth-century context of Mormonism.[2]

Coviello characterizes Latter-day Saint polygamy as having been, in the words of reviewer Adam McLain, "about an eroticized theology of the body".[3]

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As Heather White summarizes, Make Yourselves Gods argues that "avowing monogamy rather directly admitted this group [Latter-day Saints] back into" perceived whiteness.[4]

Publication[edit]

The University of Chicago Press published Make Yourselves Gods in 2019, selling it for $87 (USD) in hardcover and $29 in softcover.[5] The book is 304 pages long.[3] It includes endnotes and an index.[6]

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Reception[edit]

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Cultural scholar Edgar Garcia wrote that "Coviello’s storytelling is masterful" and considered the "political elucidations" of his narrative "compelling".[7]

In 2020, Make Yourselves Gods was a finalist for the John Whitmer Historical Association's Best Book Prize.[8]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Petrey, Taylor. "Are There Any Mormons in the History of Sexuality?". Journal Supplements. American Religion. Archived from the original on May 26, 2022. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
  2. ^ Mohrman, K. "Mormonism and the Heart of Whiteness". Journal Supplements. American Religion. Archived from the original on May 26, 2022. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
  3. ^ a b McLain, Adam (April 27, 2021). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism". Reading Religion. Archived from the original on October 4, 2022.
  4. ^ White, Heather. "Looking for Race in Sites Defined by Its Absence". Journal Supplements. American Religion. Archived from the original on May 26, 2022. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
  5. ^ Ravetz (2020, p. 565)
  6. ^ Rosetti (2020, p. 146).
  7. ^ Garcia, Edgar. "Moroni's Body; or, The Skins of Moroni". Journal Supplements. American Religion. Archived from the original on May 26, 2022. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
  8. ^ "The Topographical Parenthesis: Henry James's Spaces of Desire". Enlightenment Romanticism Contemporary Culture Research Unit of the University of Melbourne. February 14, 2022. Archived from the original on November 25, 2022; "Book Nominations 2020". John Whitmer Historical Association. Archived from the original on June 5, 2023. Retrieved January 19, 2024.

References[edit]

  • Bowman, Matthew (November 2020). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism. By Peter Coviello". Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religion. 25 (2): 124–126. doi:10.1525/nr.2020.24.2.124.
  • Brooks, Joann (Winter 2021). "Ceci n'est pas une Mormon Studies Book". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 54 (4): 173–176. doi:10.5406/15549399.54.4.173.
  • Foster, Travis M. (April 2022). "Race, Sex, and God". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 28 (2): 289–297. doi:10.1215/10642684-9608203.
  • Hazard, Sonia (November 2022). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism. By Peter Coviello". History of Religions. 62 (2): 222–224. doi:10.1086/722220.
  • Mackay, Michael Hubbard (2020). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism by Peter Coviello". BYU Studies Quarterly. 59 (4): 186–192. JSTOR 27194907.
  • Mohrman, K. (2022). Exceptionally Queer: Mormon Peculiarity and U. S. Nationalism. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-1-5179-1129-4.
  • Park, Benjamin E. (September 2020). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism. By Peter Coviello". Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture. 89 (3): 710–712. doi:10.1017/S0009640720001729.
  • Park, Benjamin (Winter 2023). "Peculiar No More?". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 56 (4): 175–178. doi:10.5406/15549399.56.4.13.
  • Ravetz, Jerome (June 2020). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism. By Peter Coviello". Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. 55 (2): 565–567. doi:10.1111/zygo.12587.
  • Rosetti, Cristina (October 2020). "Peter Coviello. Make Yourselves Gods: Mormonism and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism". Journal of Mormon History. 46 (4): 146–148. doi:10.5406/jmormhist.46.4.0146. JSTOR 10.5406/jmormhist.46.4.0146.
  • Simpson, Laura (September 2023). "On Transdisciplinary Possibility: An Interstitial Exploration of American Religious History and Religious Ethics". Journal of Religious Ethics. 51 (3): 518–538. doi:10.1111/jore.12447.
  • Wenger, Tisa (2021). "Provincializing Secularism: On Protohomonationalism and its Counterpossibilities". Mormon Studies Review. 8: 1–12. doi:10.5406/mormstudrevi.8.2021.0001.
  • Wickman, Matthew. "Peter Coviello. Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism". Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. 30: 254–262. doi:10.5406/jbookmormstud2.30.2021.0254.
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