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Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism is a 2019 nonfiction book by literary scholar Peter Coviello. The book articulates an assessment of secularism in the United States through what Coviello calls a "counter history" of Mormonism, particularly focused around the Book of Mormon, the religion's central text, and its practice (and later abandonment) of religious polygamy. []
Background
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Content
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Make Yourselves Gods works within a Foucaultian perspective, while adopting some "post-Foucaultian developments that pay attention to the mutual entanglement of sexuality with race", gender studies scholar Taylor Petrey explains.[1]
Most of Make Yourselves Gods's treatment of biopolitics focuses on the early-nineteenth-century context of Mormonism.[2]
Coviello characterizes Latter-day Saint polygamy as having been, in the words of reviewer Adam McLain, "about an eroticized theology of the body".[3]
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As Heather White summarizes, Make Yourselves Gods argues that "avowing monogamy rather directly admitted this group [Latter-day Saints] back into" perceived whiteness.[4]
Publication
The University of Chicago Press published Make Yourselves Gods in 2019, selling it for $87 (USD) in hardcover and $29 in softcover.[5] The book is 304 pages long.[3] It includes endnotes and an index.[6]
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Reception
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Cultural scholar Edgar Garcia wrote that "Coviello’s storytelling is masterful" and considered the "political elucidations" of his narrative "compelling".[7]
In 2020, Make Yourselves Gods was a finalist for the John Whitmer Historical Association's Best Book Prize.[8]
Bowman, Matthew (November 2020). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism. By Peter Coviello". Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religion. 25 (2): 124–126.
doi:
10.1525/nr.2020.24.2.124.
Brooks, Joann (Winter 2021). "Ceci n'est pas une Mormon Studies Book". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 54 (4): 173–176.
doi:
10.5406/15549399.54.4.173.
Foster, Travis M. (April 2022). "Race, Sex, and God". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 28 (2): 289–297.
doi:
10.1215/10642684-9608203.
Hazard, Sonia (November 2022). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism. By Peter Coviello". History of Religions. 62 (2): 222–224.
doi:
10.1086/722220.
Mackay, Michael Hubbard (2020). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism by Peter Coviello". BYU Studies Quarterly. 59 (4): 186–192.
JSTOR27194907.
Mohrman, K. (2022). Exceptionally Queer: Mormon Peculiarity and U. S. Nationalism. University of Minnesota Press.
ISBN978-1-5179-1129-4.
Park, Benjamin E. (September 2020). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism. By Peter Coviello". Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture. 89 (3): 710–712.
doi:
10.1017/S0009640720001729.
Park, Benjamin (Winter 2023). "Peculiar No More?". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 56 (4): 175–178.
doi:
10.5406/15549399.56.4.13.
Ravetz, Jerome (June 2020). "Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism. By Peter Coviello". Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. 55 (2): 565–567.
doi:
10.1111/zygo.12587.
Simpson, Laura (September 2023). "On Transdisciplinary Possibility: An Interstitial Exploration of American Religious History and Religious Ethics". Journal of Religious Ethics. 51 (3): 518–538.
doi:
10.1111/jore.12447.
Wenger, Tisa (2021). "Provincializing Secularism: On Protohomonationalism and its Counterpossibilities". Mormon Studies Review. 8: 1–12.
doi:
10.5406/mormstudrevi.8.2021.0001.
Wickman, Matthew. "Peter Coviello. Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism". Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. 30: 254–262.
doi:
10.5406/jbookmormstud2.30.2021.0254.