Friday, February 12, 2021
12:00–1:00 pm
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Dr. Gore describes his talk below:
Without foreclosing any religious readings of the text, my aim is to explore how the catastrophes recounted in Book of Mormon history can inform our notions of civic engagement and what it means to live a virtuous life in a world torn by political conflict. When viewed in secular terms, the Book of Mormon offers a narrative of tragic and repeated political failure. It is full of cycles of social genesis and dramatic, lamentable declension and destruction. Yet paradoxically, the Book of Mormon’s secular tone constitutes an apocalyptic sublime. The political rhetoric that emerges from the narrative orients us toward being-in-and-for-others by awaking to mournfulness. What does it mean to mourn, and how can mourning improve public discourse? Mourning is a species of Memory, the fourth canon of rhetoric. Its signal contribution to politics is that mourning allows us to recollect the limits of the political, and such recollection may help us steer clear of abject political failure and civilizational demise.
The Graduate Minor in Literacy and Rhetorical Studies is housed on the Duluth Campus within the Department of English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies. Students in any graduate program at UMD can join our community by adding this Minor. For more information, visit the UMN Literacy & Rhetorical Studies website.