Also much of this discussion on genre will factor into a post I’ve been planning on my Blog sometime next week about genre after a Belgium film series called The Trilogy. I thank you all for your input.

Interesting that you would call that a unique belief of Mormondom. Aside from the word “Christian” in the above, I would call that “Humanism.” This is basically the aesthetic I strive for in my work, so maybe I’m not so far from the mainstream of Mormon Lit.

Adam: You have an excellent point. That is one of the problems with Mormonism–way too flexible. I guess that’s why I was trying to steer away from theology in my suggestion for a Mormon aesthetic: because we don’t really have much of our own theology, or at least not a very complex system of them. There’s lots of room for individual belief within our supposedly dogmatic system, which does make it hard to define what it means to be Mormon. I think the community-esque perspective I’ve suggested is one way to deal with that, but I have some other ideas, which will show up in a post sometime next week. :D

“I sometimes think that Mormonism wasn’t meant to be an independent system of thought but rather a technology or a set of emphases that could be married to other systems of thought. Which creates problems for your unification project.”

But which also creates the possibility of some rather powerful personal projects. Matthew Barney’s work is an example from the realm of elitist, East-coast art.

I’d also note that this technology may be why there are so many Mormons who write very good speculative fiction. It’s not just that Mormons are open to the idea of science fiction because of their beliefs or because speculative fiction allows them to explore religion and belief in a way that literary fiction doesn’t — it’s also that they are accustomed to marrying system of thought, to creating the world.

The example that comes most readily to mind is how Orson Scott Card, Brandon Sandersen and David Farland all have shown a knack for creating rigorous, interesting, limited, specific magic systems.

Part of the problem you have is that Mormonism is really flexible ideologically. Your personal vision here, and your idea of what makes Mormonism unique, is pretty different from mine. I sometimes think that Mormonism wasn’t meant to be an independent system of thought but rather a technology or a set of emphases that could be married to other systems of thought. Which creates problems for your unification project.

I’m not sure there’s a genre that could be called the “Mormon” genre, but perhaps there could be a specific aesthetic or style of Mormon writing. My personal vision would be an aesthetic of individual consideration and empowerment–a Christian writing where there are no “bad” or “good” guys, but simply sympathetic people trying their misguided best to do what they think will bring them happiness. This belief in the power of humanity and its ultimate humanness is one of the most unique beliefs in Mormondom, and I think it could make for a great literature

I like these ideas, but wonder if it’s not a bit pretentious to take such complex treatments of humanity with their sympathetic characters and label that as a “Mormon” genre. To me, this move seems reductive, and self-defeatist when you are referencing common humanity and then eclipsing it by trying to place a restrictive label upon it, in essence (at least how I’m reading it, I may be wrong) saying that we have a monopoly on such belief. Why can’t Mormons lead the way (I guess Angela Hallstrom is doing this?) to incorporate everyone into a larger, “grand narrative” genre? The fiction I write tends to be about ambiguities and human complexities (usually failings), and I’ll point out here that even I’m making sweeping generalizations by claiming this work hasn’t ever been done previously. Authors as far back as Lord Byron had complex, complicated characters in very human situations which played out sympathetically even if they weren’t always “right.”

So I guess to sum up all that spouting, I’ll say I don’t really see the ability to form a “Mormon” genre without having it subverted into larger, grander narrative genres already in place.