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Explores the power and artistry of prophecy among the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, who use predictions about the future to interpret the world around them

This book challenges the common assumption that American Indian prophecy was an anomaly of the 18th and 19th centuries that resulted from tribes across the continent reacting to the European invasion. Tom Mould’s study of the contemporary prophetic traditions of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians reveals a much larger system of prophecy that continues today as a vibrant part of the oral tradition.
 
Mould shows that Choctaw prophecy is more than a prediction of the future; it is a way to unite the past, present, and future in a moral dialogue about how one should live. Choctaw prophecy, he argues, is stable and continuous; it is shared in verbal discourse, inviting negotiation on the individual level; and, because it is a tradition of all the people, it manifests itself through myriad visions with many themes. In homes, casinos, restaurants, laundromats, day care centers, and grocery stores, as well as in ceremonial and political situations, people discuss current events and put them into context with traditional stories that govern the culture. In short, recitation is widely used in everyday life as a way to interpret, validate, challenge, and create the world of the Choctaw speaker.
 
Choctaw Prophecy stands as a sound model for further study into the prophetic traditions of not only other American Indian tribes but also communities throughout the world. Weaving folklore and oral tradition with ethnography, this book will be useful to academic and public libraries as well as to scholars and students of southern Indians and the modern South.
 
 

This longstanding and highly regarded volume is the first to explore the doctrine of prophetic revelation, a critical and definitive area of Islamic religious and political thought. In it, the esteemed Islamic scholar Fazlur Rahman traces the inception of this doctrine from ancient Greek texts, its interpretation and elaboration by Muslim philosophers in order to suit their vision of the Prophet, and, finally, the varying degrees of acceptance of these convergent ideas by the Muslim orthodoxy.

The latest edition of this classic text includes a new foreword by Islamic studies expert Michael Sells, confirming Prophecy in Islam as the best source on its subject after more than half a century. This longstanding and highly regarded volume is the first to explore the doctrine of prophetic revelation, a critical and definitive area of Islamic religious and political thought. In it, the esteemed Islamic scholar Fazlur Rahman traces the inception of this doctrine from ancient Greek texts, its interpretation and elaboration by Muslim philosophers in order to suit their vision of the Prophet, and, finally, the varying degrees of acceptance of these convergent ideas by the Muslim orthodoxy.

The latest edition of this classic text includes a new foreword by Islamic studies expert Michael Sells, confirming Prophecy in Islam as the best source on its subject after more than half a century.

In nineteenth-century America, many black women left their homes, their husbands, and their children to spread the Word of God. Descendants of slaves or former “slave girls” themselves, they traveled all over the country, even abroad, preaching to audiences composed of various races, denominations, sexes, and classes, offering their own interpretations of the Bible. When they were denied the pulpit because of their sex, they preached in tents, bush clearings, meeting halls, private homes, and other spaces. They dealt with domestic ideologies that positioned them as subservient in the home, and with racist ideologies that positioned them as naturally inferior to whites. They also faced legalities restricting blacks socially and physically and the socioeconomic reality of often being part of a large body of unskilled laborers.

This book examines the richly textured histories of prophets and prophecies within East Africa. It gives an analytical account of the significantly different forms prophecy has taken over the past century across the country.

Each of the chapters takes a new look at the active dialogue between prophets and the communities whom they addressed. This dialogue continues today as the politicians and activists throughout the region still look to prophetic traditions, garnering interpretations of the past in order to provide the validation of prophetic wisdom and heroes for the present.

Grounded in direct, systematic observation by neutral observers, Talking with the Children of God is a unique study of the radical religious movement now known as The Family International. The book draws on extraordinarily candid interviews with the group's leaders and administrative staff. In revealing new information about the organization's history, beliefs, and use of prophecy, Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd offer a highly detailed case study that is both an antidote to sensationalized coverage of the group and a means for understanding the transformational practices of new religious movements in general.

One of the most controversial groups emerging from the Jesus People movement of the 1960s, the Family originally was known as The Children of God. Under leader David Berg, members proclaimed an apocalyptic "Endtime," shunned secular occupations, lived communally, and adopted unusual sexual practices that led to abuse scandals in the 1970s and 1980s. Following Berg's death in 1994, the organization began to dramatically alter its evangelization efforts and decision-making processes.

Talking with the Children of God builds a picture of a complex organization with ten thousand core members worldwide, including details on the lives, careers, and responsibilities of the second generation and their efforts to defend their faith. The authors summarize the Family's history and beliefs as well as its controversial past. In particular, they analyze the organization's use of prophecy--or channeled revelations from Jesus and other spiritual beings--for making decisions and setting policy, revealing how this essentially democratic process works and how it shapes Family life and culture.

These remarkable insights are the result of sixteen years of surveys and field observations conducted in Family member homes in sixteen countries, plus four days of face-to-face interviews with Family leaders and organizational staff. The volume also includes condensed transcripts of the interviews with analysis by Shepherd and Shepherd.

Recognizing that the seventeenth century's volatile debate over apocalyptic interpretation has since become a one-sided discussion, Esther Gilman Richey develops a context that recovers the dynamism so inherent in the writings of the period and provides illuminating details that enhance the prophetic continuum. The Politics of Revelation in the English Renaissance does not ignore the familiar prophetic verse of Spenser and Milton, but it significantly expands the scope of study by examining the interpretations of both men and women who represent a range of ecclesiastical and political perspectives.

Richey rejects Barbara Lewalski's claim that the radical, prophetic writers and metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century drew inspiration from distinct biblical models, the former from the Apocalypse and the latter from the Psalms. Instead she contends that even writers such as Donne and Herbert, whom we have long considered "literary," were in reality using their poetry to participate in the hottest debates of the time.

While the radical writers, such as Spenser and Milton, were immediately responsive to ecclesiastical and political controversies, the conservative, metaphysical poets—Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan—were posing equally politically charged questions: Is the pope Antichrist? Is the Bride of Christ pure? Is the Temple a model of ecclesiastical reform? The writers of the period did not move in divided and distinguished worlds, but in fact constantly responded to one another through poetic and politically charged dialogue.

By drawing from the writings of various individuals, both radical and conformist, male and female, Richey traces the shifting representations of the apocalyptic Bride and Temple over time. Organized chronologically, the chapters of The Politics of Revelation in the English Renaissance reveal the escalating debate among the pacifists, conformists, militants, and feminists. Not only does Richey uncover the prophetic dimension of conformist writers usually described as apolitical and devotional, but she also explores the writings of lesser-known women prophets: Aemilia Lanyer, Mary Cary, Anna Trapnel, and Margaret Fell. In such biblical passages as the apocalyptic "woman clothed with the sun," these early feminists find the authority for their own prophetic speech.

This provocative analysis—at once far-reaching and tightly focused—reveals the complexity of the apocalyptic discourse that transpired among Renaissance writers and poets.

These newly collected short stories reveal a master at the top of his game. Drago Jancar possesses an acute understanding of the human psyche, enabling his stories to resonate beyond their particular milieu. This collection features seven pieces, drawn from four different collections, that together present the struggle of individuals against powerful forces. The characters try to make sense of a world of shifting borders and changing names that make the idea of a "homeland"—either literal or figurative—a dream rather than a reality.

Volume 18, The Leonard J. Arrington Lecture Series

The Special Collections and Archives of Utah State University's Merrill-Cazier Library houses the personal and historical collection of Leonard J. Arrington, renowned scholar of the American West.

The Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture annually hosts the presentation of current research by a leading scholar. Among the lecturers have been such notable historians as Thomas G. Alexander, Richard L. Bushman, Sarah Barringer Gordon, Howard Lamar, Jan Shipps, Donald Worster, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.