Keeping the Sacred: Structured Silence in the Enactment of Priesthood Authority, Gendered Worship, and Sacramental Kinship in Mormonism.

Anthropology of Religion;Mormonism;Secrecy;Religious Language;Gender;Silence;Anthropology and Archaeology;Social Sciences;Anthropology

Kramer, Bradley H.Hull, Matthew ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Anthropology of Religion;    Mormonism;    Secrecy;    Religious Language;    Gender;    Silence;    Anthropology and Archaeology;    Social Sciences;    Anthropology;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/107060/bhkramer_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

The capacity of language for self-referentiality—the fact that language-use inevitably refers not just to the world but to language itself, to interactions, interactants, and interactional contexts—makes language a powerful tool for shaping and contesting our social world. This dissertation explores these dynamics within two speech-communities: members of The Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite) and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). It also proposes (in the concluding chapter) a new heuristic model or ;;definition” of religion in expressly semiotic terms. Rather than asking what makes an act religious, it asks how it is that we make certain of our acts legible to others as religious acts.The analytic focus is not sacred discourse per se but discourse about the sacred in Mormonism, and the role played by various patterns of secrecy within that discourse. Part I (Chapters 2-3) explores these discursive phenomena within the liturgical language of/about LDS temple rites. This is not an account of sacred language, nor an explication of Mormon temple worship; it is an analysis of language about sacred language, an ethnography of how Mormons talk about (and talk about not talking about) temple rituals. In Part II (Chapters 4-5), structured silences surrounding such topics as female deity, polygamy, and female sexual desire are examined, with particular focus on the role they play in shaping the experience of Mormon women and Mormon femininity. Part III (Chapter 6 and Conclusion) brings the Cutlerites into the conversation, mostly as a point of contrast. The ethnographic description and analysis of LDS kinship grows out, in part, of thinking through the difference between the two traditions. Drawing from the work of Sahlins, I describe the distinctive shape that Mormon shared subjectivity takes and how it is enacted. The concluding chapter presents a theory of religion as primarily a semiotic phenomenon. In part the model is meant to sidestep some of the issues—including belief, sincerity, agency, the supernatural—which have encumbered past attempts to define religion. It is also intended as a theoretical extrapolation out from the specific case study (Mormonism) explored in prior chapters.