O'Dea Conference

On Wednesday I presented a paper "Are We Men, Mormons, or Lamanites: Native American Mormons and the Work of Thomas F. O'Dea" as the closing event of a conference at UVSC that was a retrospective on the work and like of Thomas F. O'Dea. There was recently published a collection of essays by sociologists and anthropologists from around the world revisiting O'Dea and his most famous work The Mormons (1957). Besides myself, there were only two other people (Dr. Grant Underwood & Dr. Todd Goodsell from BYU) who presented that were not authors in the recent volume. I was able to meet most of the people who wrote for the Revisiting O'Dea volume and it was well worth it. My paper really caused a stir and there was a good hour and a half debate about some of the issues in my paper after the conference. Nearly everyone that heard came to me and said that it was the best and most interesting paper of the whole conference. I had a fun time because I was able to rework my previous paper that I had presented at the AAA to address the work of O'Dea (under the tutelage of Clyde Klockhohn and Talcott Parsons). I think that I was able to bring to light some of O'Dea's short comings and some problems with the new volume. Overall it was a pretty positive experience, even though I couldn't sleep that night because I kept mulling the criticism that I received through my head. I am excited to start a new project ASAP. Hopefully things will turn out all right.