DCP Responds to Getting "Fired" from the Review

[_Yoda]

or ...Don Bradley? ;)

While that would be fabulous, he does not yet possess a graduate degree. I would imagine the job will go to a PhD with some publication experience under his belt. It will most likely be someone already at BYU.

I wonder if David Bokyvoy would be considered.

[_Kishkumen]

It will be replaced by the journal at Claremont. The hiatus will morph into something not. But I'm not an insider and don't know.

Replaced in what sense, Bot? You don't think BYU wants to compete in the academic Mormon Studies arena by having its own serious journal devoted to the subject?

[_Kishkumen]

I wonder if David Bokyvoy would be considered.

Possible, but unlikely. It is too delicious a plum to give to a young scholar. To remake the Review as a serious Mormon Studies publication would be a real feather in one's career cap, at BYU.

[_Yoda]

I wonder if David Bokyvoy would be considered.

Possible, but unlikely. It is too delicious a plum to give to a young scholar. To remake the Review as a serious Mormon Studies publication would be a real feather in one's career cap, at BYU.

However, I think that the choice would make perfect sense if they are interested in going in a new direction. I certainly hope that he is inolved in any case.

[Guest]

It will be replaced by the journal at Claremont. The hiatus will morph into something not. But I'm not an insider and don't know.

Replaced in what sense, Bot? You don't think BYU wants to compete in the academic Mormon Studies arena by having its own serious journal devoted to the subject?

There just isn't a place at BYU for a Mormon Studies Review. You already have BYU Studies (Welch, the editor), and Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, the slick glossy. BYU Studies is the place to publish a rigorous peer-reviewed piece, but even so anything moderately critical of the Church's past wouldn't be published there.

What makes FARMS Review so unique is that it invited the publication of hacks like me, those out of the mainstream of the ivory tower. Lots of variety in quality. It is peer reviewed, but in its own peer way.

To make it a general Mormon Studies Review with polite articles is to be the same as BYU Studies. Why would donors contribute to that.

FAIR will morph into something more professional and slick (I mean that in an aesthetic sense) to fill the evolutionary gap. This is a good development for FAIR, which will attract more rigorous writers but who are not real hardcore academics willing to burnish their resume. The new Claremont review will attract those of the Bushman, Quinn and Givens quality, although Quinn is over the hill.

But, again, I could be speaking out of my read end. I don't know. I am way out of the mainstream.

[_lulu]

(refering to DCP) someone else, someone working in the mainstream of Mormon studies,

[_Mercury]

I give dannyboy 5 minutes before he is hocking ganked artifacts out of the back of a soon to be repossessed minivan somewhere in Haifa. He can learn the trade from other disgraced BYU professors currently skulking around the holy land straining really hard to find bountiful.

[_sock puppet]

BYU Studies is the place to publish a rigorous peer-reviewed piece, but even so anything moderately critical of the Church's past wouldn't be published there.

What makes FARMS Review so unique is that it invited the publication of hacks like me, those out of the mainstream of the ivory tower. Lots of variety in quality. It is peer reviewed, but in its own peer way.

To make it a general Mormon Studies Review with polite articles is to be the same as BYU Studies. Why would donors contribute to that.

It hasn't been a good 5 years for big money Mormons that have donated to fund enterprises seeking to validate their beliefs of ever-narrowing credibility (such as to the Review) and the state imposition of their beliefs (Prop 8). When you take the Hinckley (NOM) administration followed by the Monson (cupcake) one into account, it is not a comfortable era for firebrand TBMs like DCP.

[_Kevin Graham]

What makes FARMS Review so unique is that it invited the publication of hacks like me, those out of the mainstream of the ivory tower. Lots of variety in quality. It is peer reviewed, but in its own peer way.

To make it a general Mormon Studies Review with polite articles is to be the same as BYU Studies. Why would donors contribute to that.

FAIR will morph into something more professional and slick (I mean that in an aesthetic sense) to fill the evolutionary gap. This is a good development for FAIR, which will attract more rigorous writers but who are not real hardcore academics willing to burnish their resume. The new Claremont review will attract those of the Bushman, Quinn and Givens quality, although Quinn is over the hill.

It is interesting that, after reading Dan's email and Bob's comments, they seem to be conceding a few things:

1) A DCP led Review was unique, precisely because it went after people in an non-scholarly way. This is quite the opposite of what Dan has been willing to concede in public. In fact, he has rejected it out of hand every time someone tries to tell him this.

2) Dan has served as an apologetic lobbyist who goes around targeting wealthy Mormons, trying to cull wealth from them so he can continue to produce these nonscholarly hit pieces. There is no honor is that responsibility, and in fact I think it would be quite interesting to know what it is exactly Dan is telling these people to convince them to hand over to him their money. Bob and Dan are convinced that wealthy Mormons are more interested in retribution than scholarship.

3) Both Dan and Bob appear confident that what Mormons really want to read, isn't scholarship on the academic level. What they really want to read is attack jobs written by "hacks" like him.

4) Bob tends to think of bonafide scholarship as boring. Something to yawn at.

5) Dan is very much a vindictive person. Just look at the way he went after Bradford with this ghettoesque "I'm gonna get you back sucka" response, by suggesting his resignation is going to hurt the organization's ability to raise funding.

Can you imagine the agony Dan is going through right now as he reads these threads, knowing perfectly well that his email has been compromised by one of his eighteen recipients?

[_Kishkumen]

But, again, I could be speaking out of my read end. I don't know. I am way out of the mainstream.

Your analysis is good, but I think you overestimate the rationality of the decision in business terms and underestimate internal competition. So what if there is a BYU Studies? It may be the time for its eclipse by a new voice. Competition for these things is very intense at the BYU, and it is often motivated by the best of intentions. I bet each party involved views themselves as doing the right thing for the Kingdom. Not everyone gets such a golden opportunity to make a large and unique contribution of this kind.