Armand L. Mauss

ARMAND L. MAUSS {[email protected]} is professor emeritus of sociology and religious studies, Washington State University, now living in Irvine, California. Recently he has also taught courses in Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University. A frequent contributor to Dialogue, he is author of three books on Mormons. His next book, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport (a memoir) is forthcoming in 2012. “Rethinking Retrenchment” is a much fuller version of a paper he delivered on June 18, 2001, at the Springville (Utah) Art Museum at an all-day symposium in honor of Richard Bushman on his eightieth birthday. The program for that symposium can be found at http:// mormon-chronicles.blogspot.com/2011/06/mormonism-in-culturalcontext-symposium.html; and http://bycommonconsent.files.wordpress. com/2011/06/bushmansymposiumprogramflyer.pdf.

Articles

Sociological Perspectives on Mormon Sexuality: A Postscript

Mormonism and the Negro: Faith, Folklore and Civil Rights

Dialogue 2.4 (Winter 1967): 19–40
In this historical analysis, Mauss argues that starting in the 1850s, the church started to deny priesthood and temple blessings to anyone who had even a trace of African ancestry.

Moderation in All Things: Political and Social Outlooks of Modern Urban Mormons

Perhaps the most difficult kind of analysis that scholars may presume to make is that of presenting attitudes of people toward various ideas. Any poll can be affected by weakness in the sampling technique, by…

Saints, Cities, and Secularism: Religious Attitudes and Behavior of Modern Urban Mormons

This poignant observation by Dale L. Morgan was written even before World War II, and the erstwhile Utah sons and daughters spoken of are themselves now grandparents. Moreover, it is doubtful that anyone any longer has any hopes of closing the “wounds” through which they departed. Indeed, the “wounds” have long since come to be regarded instead as gateways to worldly opportunity. With worldly opportunity has come worldly achievement, which has in turn brought worldly respectability; and respectability is always a problem for a “peculiar people.”

Shall the Youth of Zion Falter? Mormon Youth and Sex: A Two-City Comparison

This brief note summarizes findings from two surveys taken among Mormons during 1967-1969, one in Salt Lake City and one in “Coastal City,” northern California.[1] Among the questions asked was the following: Most of us…

The Fading of the Pharaoh’s Curse: The Decline and Fall of the Priesthood Ban Against Blacks

Dialogue 14.3 (Fall 1981): 11–45
Mauss situates the 1978 revelation on the priesthood in modern American historical context. Everything changed for the Church during the Civil Rights Movement when people both inside and outside the Church were harshly critcizing the priesthood ban. When the world was changing, it looked like the Church was still adherring to the past.

The Unfettered Faithful: An Analysis of the Dialogue Subscribers Survey

During the spring of 1984, the editors of DIALOGUE sent a short questionnaire to all of its then-2,300 subscribers plus 600 who had let their subscriptions lapse in the previous year. At that point, the journal had been edited in Salt Lake City for exactly two years.

Culture, Charisma, and Change: Reflections on Mormon Temple Worship

Dialogue 20.4 (Winter 1987): 33–76
Mauss encourages an openess about the temple to help better prepare future endowment holders and to create a better understanding among members and nonmembers.

Assimilation and Ambivalence: The Mormon Reaction to Americanization

In the center of Salt Lake City, two important traditional Mormon symbols confront each other across Main Street: the angel on the temple spire and the beehive atop the now-closed Hotel Utah.[1] While the beehive…

The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation and Identity: Trends and Developments Since Midcentury

Welfare as Warfare | Garth L. Mangum and Bruce D. Blumell, The Mormons’ War on Poverty: A History of LDS Welfare, 1830-1990

Although this book has an overly dramatic title, it is a magnificent and sensitive history of the efforts by church members and leaders to respond meaningfully to economic need, not only in LDS communities but…

Mormonism in the Twenty-first Century

Guest Editor’s Introduction

On “Defense of Marriage” A Reply to Quinn

In a reply to Quinn’s article in the same issue, Armand Mauss questioned whether the church was motivated by homophobia or a more benevolent force.

Mormonism’s Worldwide Aspirations and its Changing Conceptions of Race and Lineage

Maturing and Enduring: Dialogue and Its Readers after Forty Years

Sonnet to Japanese Spring

Seeking a “Second Harvest”: Controlling the Costs of LDS Membership in Europe

Rethinking Retrenchment: Course Corrections in the Ongoing Quest for Respectability

Dialogue Lectures #8 w/ Armand Mauss

Armand L. Mauss, emeritus professor or sociology and religious studies at Washington State University and author of several books and a great many articles on a variety of Mormon issues, including his seminal The Angel and… Read more