Mike Quinn

[_Dr. Shades]

He's a poster child for the anti-Mormon intelligensia -- a poor one at that.

He's the single greatest historian of Mormon History who has ever lived. No other author on the topic of Mormonism has discovered more, revealed more, or analyzed more than Quinn. I daresay that, page for page, no other author has written more Mormon history than Quinn.

The fact that you'd list Brodie, of all people, as a superior historian to Quinn is just mind-boggling.

[_rcrocket]

Huh? I'm just operating off a statement made in the Wall Street Journal by the Dean of Humanities at the U of U. My position in this thread is to ascertain whether you and the other anti-Mormons on this board with pretensions to academia agree with Dr. Newman or not regarding his statement about Dr. Quinn.

Are you incapable of recognizing why this information is pertinent?

Academics are not plug and play. They are not fungible. There may have been a job opening at the time, there may not have been. It is like Kevin Garnett becoming available. Other teams may want him, others not. They make a space available or not. How do you compare one with the other in that case?

But, if you look at the faculty curricula vitae you might be able to find a faculty member of Dr. Quinn's vintage and examine his/her credentials. The department's American West group is at http://www.hum.utah.edu/display.php?mod ... rsonId=803, but the director looks pretty young. Look for somebody in the department in their 60s who is a full professor. Just a suggestion. I don't really think your question is all that legitimate but I am willing to be persuaded.

You know, I am not the biggest fan of Mr. Guy Sajer, but you should PM for his curriculum vitae and hold it up against Quinn's. Completely different fields, I grant you, but you will see major flaws in Quinn's credentials.

rcrocket

[_rcrocket]

He's a poster child for the anti-Mormon intelligensia -- a poor one at that.

He's the single greatest historian of Mormon History who has ever lived. No other author on the topic of Mormonism has discovered more, revealed more, or analyzed more than Quinn. I daresay that, page for page, no other author has written more Mormon history than Quinn.

The fact that you'd list Brodie, of all people, as a superior historian to Quinn is just mind-boggling.

You see, I just take exception to your position. His major works have not been subjected to the rigor of adequate peer-reviewing. His two major Power books really suffer from a lack of editorial control, and I think many people have said that.

Fawn Brodie was a giant among writers and historians. I just don't agree with her conclusions because they discard the effect of revelation and the spirit, and assume a naturalistic explanation for supernatural events, but her work on Joseph Smith was ground-breaking for the information she had at the time. I think she is probably the most-referenced Mormon historian of all time. She is a better writer than Quinn.

But, really, this is all subjective isn't it? Who is the greatest NBA player of all time? I think Wilt Chamberlain, not Michael Jordan. So there.

[Guest]

If publication of Quinn's book by the academic University of Illinois Press had been supported by grants from other academic institutions (was Ron Walker's book was), this would in no way have made it less an academic book.

As it turns out, however, the copyright for Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth Century Americans: A Mormon Example, unlike the Walker book, fails to state that it was funded by any other institution (or individual). It says only:

(c) 1996 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

It can be viewed by by going to the book's "Look Inside" page at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0252069 ... eader-link, and then clicking on "Copyright."

So, Bob, will just have to shift to other "reasons" for denigrating Quinn's work. Note that while the "reasons" change, the conclusion will remain constant.

Don

P.S. You can also follow the link above and click "Back Cover" for several rave reviews--from Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, and several high-profile academics who can't recognize a vanity publication by a second-rate historian half as well as the Chancellor of BCU can. Hell, these bozos reviewing Quinn's book for rags like Religious Studies Review and the Journal of American History even confuse it with work that is "thoroughly researched...and subtly argued" and "sterling scholarship, balanced interpretation, and insightful analysis"! Thank God we have Bob to set the record straight!

[_DonBradley]

The fact that you'd list Brodie, of all people, as a superior historian to Quinn is just mind-boggling.

Hey Shades,

It's only mind-boggling if you expect rationality and consistency from Bob. Don't you know better?

Bob is an opportunistic polemecist. He'll use whatever is at hand to promote his current argument, no matter how inconsistent it makes him among arguments. The arguments can all contradict each other across time (e.g., Bob's shifts between denigrating Quinn and saying he "admires" him and uses him, maybe just not enough to satisfy others...), so long as he can promote his current point.

Bob's debating style is utterly dishonest. It puts me in mind of whatever Emerson said of those who disingenuously pretend to weigh evidence in order to more effectively push their foregone conclusion:

If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the
expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous
word? Do I not know that with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution he will do no such thing? Do I
not know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side, the permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister?
He is a retained attorney, and these airs of the bench are the emptiest affectation. Well, most men have bound their eyes with
one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes
them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite
true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us and we know not
where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we
adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression.

I can picture Bob now.

Don

[_BishopRic]

I have a question. First, I admit I don't know the specific details of this, but I recall that Dr. Quinn struggled to get a good position at a few Universities, and it was reported that he was "rejected" for reasons perhaps like Bob is citing, but that there were significant department financial contributions from active Mormons which indirectly threatened/prevented the institutions from hiring him.

Is it possible that Mike was "rejected" for these reasons, rather than the verbalized reasons the Dean of Humanities mentioned? I know as an employer, I have often fired employees, stating a politically correct reason, rather than the real reason I let them go.

Similar?

[_rcrocket]

It is further interesting that Dr. Quinn's Same Sex Dynamics book has been assigned a queer studies category in the Dewey Decimal system at the Los Angeles Public Library, rather than a Mormon studies category. I don't know how these decisions are made -- would this be the same designation in other libraries? In any event, it shows that he has published no Mormon studies books at independent publishing houses.

So, to summarize.

1. My original point is that the Dean of Humanities at the U of U noted in the Wall Street Journal that Dr. Quinn lacked credentials to be hired because most of his works were not published at creditable places. I agreed with this point and listed his publications. Sure enough, it seemed to be true.

2. Dr. Shades challenged the Dean – is he a member of the Church? An open question. It could make a difference, I suppose in the analysis.

3. BishopRic asked if the Dean’s reasons were not true reasons, and that Dr. Quinn wasn’t hired because he was blackballed? I don’t know and doubt anybody would know. However, in response to that point, it would seem that an objective reader of Dr. Quinn’s bibliography would probably agree that his credentials are razor thin. What has happened here is that he has achieved hero status among Mormon haters, which is all the more significant given the fact that Dr. Quinn says he still believes in angels and gold plates. What better poster boy than this?

4. Beastie asked about the credentials of the person whom the U hired instead of Dr. Quinn. I don’t think there is an “instead of” person, but I pointed her to the faculty resources page to see if some hay could be made of the credentials of full professors who are actually at the U.

5. Kevin Graham made the point that lawyers lie, they can’t be trusted, that I am a lawyer, and thus cannot be trusted in this argument. I know that Kevin Graham teaches at a South American university; I’m rather surprised that he’d stoop to such an argument. Even the sleazy nastiness of Mr. Scratch doesn’t get there because Scratch would know better than to make that kind of argument. In my defense, I must say that a litigator’s job is to ferret out facts and present them in a favorable light to a decision maker. We are ethically prohibited from relying upon lies.

6. Don Bradley makes the point that I rely in my Quinn argument upon a deliberate falsehood. I have asked him to identify the falsehood. So far, nothing. I don’t expect to hear from him.

7. Harmony challenges my assertion that Utah State is an “academic powerhouse.” This is kind of irrelevant, but Utah State really is a fine publisher of western history, publishing the Western Historical Quarterly. It has also published Arrington’s Great Basin Kingdom and Bigler’s great work on western history. I have asked her whether she thought those works qualified as great works; radio silence. I don’t expect to hear from her. I doubt she even possesses Great Basin Kingdom, probably one of the top ten Mormon publications ever.

8. Don has also accused me of being an opportunistic polemicist. I must confess I don't have the same vocabulary as he. I really have a hard time responding to an idiomatic charge. (An example of an idiomatic charge is one which asserts some logical fallacy; unless one is part of the rhetorical priesthood one is ill-equipped to understand what such a charge means.) But, it is axiomatic to me the following: Dr. Quinn is an admired and capable writer. He has published great works. He has brought new things to light. But, at the same time, I think he lacks credentials to be the greatest Mormon historian ever, and he even lacks credentials to get a job. Certainly, it would seem to me that if he felt he was being blackballed by Mormons he could leave the Wasatch Front. But, he can't. His sole published book by an independent academic publisher is a queer studies book. I just don't think that makes him too marketable.

9. Since most of Dr. Quinn’s works are published by that provincial Wasatch Front vanity house, Signature Books, I questioned whether Dr. Quinn’s queer studies book was also published as a vanity item by the University of Illinois. Don has correctly stated that it appears from Same Sex Dynamics that it was not, and therefore I withdraw my suppositional question. I lose on this point.

10. In conclusion, I am trying to be fair, but I just don’t think Dr. Quinn can carry the water of a Fawn Brodie.

[_Coggins7]

Insult away, you two. Insults directed to my occupation really should play no role in the analysis here. The rather tired claim that lawyers aren't really interested in the truth as persons is really sophomoric and beneath you.

Correct. Typical ad hominem circumstantial. A long standing forté of those who cannot stand on their own two feet in the arena of ideas.

Even so, Same Sex Dynamics is not a book about Mormon history. Quinn has limited credentials.

Oh, I thought his research was "impeccable" (Grin!).

[_beastie]

4. Beastie asked about the credentials of the person whom the U hired instead of Dr. Quinn. I don’t think there is an “instead of” person, but I pointed her to the faculty resources page to see if some hay could be made of the credentials of full professors who are actually at the U.

The reason I would like to see who was actually hired for this position is to evaluate the validity of the dean's explanation for his rejection of Quinn. This is why the individual's particular resume would be important. Did this individual possess better publishing credentials than Quinn? If so, shouldn't we recognize his/her name?

All we know is that the position was downgraded and filled with an active Mormon.

[_Coggins7]

I know that Kevin Graham teaches at a South American university

Don't tell me...Kevin teaches Queer Theory and the history of Hair Metel at the State University of Ecuador...

Funny how these things work out sometimes...