Smith's Hit Piece: Unfit for Print?

[_Kishkumen]

In view of Ham's public caterwauling, and DCP's very public response cited here, are Dan & Ham splitting?

They've always made such a lovely couple.

No way.

[_lulu]

In view of Ham's public caterwauling, and DCP's very public response cited here, are Dan & Ham splitting?

They've always made such a lovely couple.

No way.

Oh good. Divorce is such a painful thing.

[_Doctor Scratch]

It looks we're seeing a lot of on-the-spot revision taking place. On the one hand we've got Bryce Haymond, using Nibley to trash BYU:

A university is nothing more nor less than a place to show off. And that's what they are doing. Everybody is consciously acting a role there. Everybody's after eminence. That's their objective. Their whole objective is eminence. They have nothing else to live for. (The Faith of an Observer: Conversations with Hugh Nibley)

On the other hand, we have Dr. Peterson, now saying that the Mormon Interpreter blog/website is illegitimate:

Serious question: Does the Interpretor blog count as 'publishing'?

No, the Interpreter blog doesn't and shouldn't count as publishing.

On the other hand, the peer-reviewed, type-set journal of The Interpreter Foundation, which is called Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, does, and should.

Doesn't this undermine the sorts of praise we got from Scott Lloyd, who asserted that Mormon Interpreter was now "more nimble" and more "21st century" because it was a purely cyber-venture? And of course, this isn't even beginning to explore the problems with diffentiating "real" publication purely on the basis of something like "type-setting" and the kind of "peer review" performed by the MI's "Editorial Board."

[_Bazooka]

So, within a week and within the first six months of its life "Interpreter" has published something that is not 'on mission' and had an editor resign to try and improve his credibility...

It's going well.

[Ahoody]

The trouble is that faculty members have finite time and energy, so that effort given to X is effort no longer available to devote to Y. Doing Mormon studies almost inevitably cuts into what might simply be lumped together and called "non-Mormon studies." I don't blame a department chairman for finding that situation worthy of discussion, but I do worry that, if Mormon studies are effectively altogether penalized by certain administrators at BYU, such studies will languish at the Church's flagship university, which seems distinctly odd and which will then effectively cede the entire field to people at Claremont, Durham, Virginia, Utah State, UVU, and etc. And we may or may not always appreciate what those people do, but, if we've turned the field over to them, we'll have no grounds for complaint. emphasis added

Grin. Yes, I see now.

Um, Daniel, you're wising up, eh?

The thing is: Mormon Studies are still on the menu at the Maxwell Institute. You know, Mormon Studies, the very thing Bill Hamblin has been publicly dismissing as a viable pursuit at BYU for months now?

It is good to see that you can tell which way the wind is blowing. What is less admirable is this pose in which you pretend to be the sole advocate of something you were tossed out of the Institute for the purposes of advancing.

You see, it was you who stood in the way of turning the Mormon Studies Review into the publication it ought to be. Others, the ones who saw to your removal as editor, were the ones who long ago determined not to cede the field of Mormon Studies to other universities.

You are unbelievable.

In any case, good luck with your latest attempt to get back into the Maxwell Institute. This doesn't show humility on your part, but it does show some pragmatism.

No kidding.

This is a fine bit of dissembling. This is not anywhere near an issue about how to spend one's scholarly time or productively allocate faculty. There was never any attempt by classic-FARMS/MI to actually do "Mormon studies" as it is intellectually understood at the universities mentioned and by scholars in related fields of history, religious studies, sociology and cultural studies. There would never be any reprimand from an academic department for pursuing academic goals. Doing Mormon studies is not going to penalized.

The problem was that doing Mormon apologetics (ala classic FARMS) cuts into doing Mormon studies.

[Guest]

Please note, though, incidentally, that Dr. Smith's articles appear on the Interpreter site but are neither typeset nor paginated for publication in the Interpreter journal, proper. That's deliberate.

what that is is a distinction without a difference. he might as well say he published the Smith hit piece rough draft in Mormon Interpreter, but had his fingers crossed behind his back when he did so.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Yeah, I'm still not entirely sure how to read all this and to figure out what this all says about the political machinations that are currently playing out. It is truly remarkable that DCP is refusing to give the "hit pieces" the stamp of legitimacy, but it certainly does feel like he's trying to salvage *some*thing out of this mess they've created. I would guess that his most recent Interpreter article is the consequence of this to some extent. The piece reads like a strange mishmash of his Middle Eastern work that's been given a vaguely "Mormon Studies"-ish revision: like he went back in and revised it specifically so that it would fit more neatly into a "Mormon Studies" paradigm. But, of course, this isn't a guy who's exactly known for restraint, and you can still see some of the old Mopologetic impulses creeping into the text. (I'm thinking especially of his argument that some LDS should never be exposed to the full truth about Mormonism.)

[_Doctor Scratch]

Please note, though, incidentally, that Dr. Smith's articles appear on the Interpreter site but are neither typeset nor paginated for publication in the Interpreter journal, proper. That's deliberate.

what that is is a distinction without a difference. he might as well say he published the Smith hit piece rough draft in Mormon Interpreter, but had his fingers crossed behind their back when he did so.

I wonder if Smith is angry about this? I partly suspect that the hit piece's appearch on the MI website was the doing of the "Young Turks"--e.g., Smoot and Haymond, and that the "Old Guard" would have preferred to go on waiting. Regardless, this "demotion" of the hit piece to blog-only status is a tremendous slap in the face to Smith by the MI Board.

[_sock puppet]

Doing Mormon studies almost inevitably cuts into what might simply be lumped together and called "non-Mormon studies." I don't blame a department chairman for finding that situation worthy of discussion,

Grin. Yes, I see now.

Um, Daniel, you're wising up, eh?

The thing is: Mormon Studies are still on the menu at the Maxwell Institute. You know, Mormon Studies, the very thing Bill Hamblin has been publicly dismissing as a viable pursuit at BYU for months now?

It is good to see that you can tell which way the wind is blowing. What is less admirable is this pose in which you pretend to be the sole advocate of something you were tossed out of the Institute for the purposes of advancing.

You see, it was you who stood in the way of turning the Mormon Studies Review into the publication it ought to be. Others, the ones who saw to your removal as editor, were the ones who long ago determined not to cede the field of Mormon Studies to other universities.

You are unbelievable.

In view of Ham's public caterwauling, and DCP's very public response cited here, are Dan & Ham splitting?

They've always made such a lovely couple.

Maybe just a squabble that spilled out onto the streets. They'll be having a make-up session in the very near future.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

I wonder if Smith is angry about this? I partly suspect that the hit piece's appearch on the MI website was the doing of the "Young Turks"--e.g., Smoot and Haymond, and that the "Old Guard" would have preferred to go on waiting. Regardless, this "demotion" of the hit piece to blog-only status is a tremendous slap in the face to Smith by the MI Board.

Dr. Scratch,

If I had to guess, I would say that Smith is not too pleased that all of his hard work will never make it to press.

I guess in the end it was just too sucky for even DCP to publish.