Still, the Small Voice

Memorates-personal experience narratives of encounters with the supernatural-that recount individuals' personal revelations, primarily through the Holy Ghost, are a pervasive aspect of the communal religious experience of Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In accordance with current emphases in folklore studies on narrative and belief, Tom Mould uses ethnographic research and an emic approach that honors the belief systems under study to analyze how people within Mormon communities frame and interpret their experiences with the divine through the narratives they share. In doing so, he provides a significant new ethnographic interpretation of Mormon culture and belief and also applies his findings directly to broader scholarly folklore discourse on performance, genre, personal experience narrative, belief, and oral versus written traditions.

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Literary Tradition	p. 2
Approach	p. 3
Methods	p. 8
Names and Pseudonyms	p. 11
Texts and Transcriptions	p. 13
The Broad Strokes of Tradition	p. 15
The Mormon Folk Tradition	p. 15
The Mormon Oral Tradition	p. 21
Personal Revelation Narratives	p. 23
Conclusion	p. 50
Synthesis: The Boundaries of Genre	p. 52
Sharing the Sacred	p. 60
Defining Performance	p. 60
Norms for Performance	p. 61
Strategies to Negotiate the Paradox	p. 76
Evaluating Performance	p. 82
Variation in Performance	p. 96
Conclusion	p. 128
Synthesis: The Paradox of Performance	p. 129
Transforming Life into Story	p. 137
Genre	p. 137
Prescriptive Revelation	p. 140
Descriptive Revelation	p. 159
Experience and the Narrative Tradition	p. 173
Conclusion	p. 180
Synthesis: The Interpretive Challenge of Religious Memorates	p. 181
The Building Blocks of a Narrative Tradition	p. 192
Narrative Patterns	p. 193
Personal Revelation as Motif	p. 215
Retroactive Revelation	p. 226
Conclusion	p. 240
Echoes of Culture	p. 242
Danger	p. 244
Domestic Life	p. 261
Church Work	p. 288
Thematic Variation	p. 313
Conclusion	p. 317
Synthesis: Pattern in Performance	p. 320
A Record-Keeping People	p. 327
The Written Tradition in Mormon Folklore	p. 329
The Written Tradition for Personal Discovery	p. 330
The Written Tradition in Family Records	p. 333
The Written Tradition in Publication	p. 346
Conclusion	p. 372
Synthesis: Oral and Written Traditions	p. 373
Afterword	p. 381
Appendix	p. 389
Notes	p. 394
Works Cited	p. 423
Index	p. 441
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

FREE SHIPPING

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

Still, the Small Voice

Summary

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials