Americanist Approaches to the Book of Mormon - Paperback

by Elizabeth Fenton (Editor), Jared Hickman (Editor)

As the sacred text of a modern religious movement of global reach, The Book of Mormon has undeniable historical significance. That significance, this volume shows, is inextricable from the intricacy of its literary form and the audacity of its historical vision. This landmark collection brings together a diverse range of scholars in American literary studies and related fields to definitively establish The Book of Mormon as an indispensable object of Americanist inquiry not least because it is, among other things, a form of Americanist inquiry in its own right--a creative, critical reading of "America." Drawing on formalist criticism, literary and cultural theory, book history, religious studies, and even anthropological field work, Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon captures as never before the full dimensions and resonances of this "American Bible."

Author Biography

Elizabeth Fenton is Associate Professor of English at the University of Vermont. She is the author of Religious Liberties: Anti-Catholicism and Liberal Democracy in Nineteenth-Century US Literature and Culture (Oxford, 2011).

Jared Hickman is Associate Professor of English at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Black Prometheus: Race and Radicalism in the Age of Atlantic Slavery (Oxford, 2016) and co-editor (with Martha Schoolman) of Abolitionist Places (Routledge, 2016).