Item Detail
-
26152
-
1
-
7
-
English
-
Vardis Fisher's Mormon Scars : Mapping the Diaspora in the Testament of Man
-
Dialogue : A Journal of Mormon Thought
-
Fall 2014
-
47
-
3
-
Cambridge, MA
-
Dialogue Foundation
-
1-22
-
In 1940, Vardis Fisher was one of a handful of writers in the US rumored to be "important." The question of whether Fisher can be called a "Mormon writer" in even a limited sense became the subject of intense dispute when early Mormon literary critics tried to claim him for their tribe. Here, Austin advances the thesis that Fisher's rejection of Mormonism was less complete than critics had previously supposed. Against the common view of Fisher as an atheist who completely rejected Mormonism in his youth, the authors argue that he "was not an apostate," that he "never renounced his religion," and that "his outlook on life and history was religious, definitely Judeo-Christian and definitely encompassing Latter-day Saint belief and practice."