Exponent II
A feminist forum for Mormon women and gender minority voices
Book review of Katie Langston’s Sealed In a short essay for BYU Studies Quarterly (2015, 183—197), scholar and author Angela Hallstrom noted that “Mormon women have been particularly diligent writers of personal history, and their words have helped to preserve a nuanced, multifac…
“We will begin by singing — uh, by NOT singing — Hymn #. . . ,” the brand-new bishop said, called just one Sunday before church shut down for sixteen weeks. This is our first masked Sunday back. Intentional emptiness. Every fourth row has a white paper sign taped up: “Sit here.” …
Sacrament talk in Mar Vista Ward, Santa Monica Stake We didn’t make it to church last week. My three-year-old came down with something like the flu, so I decided we would stay home and keep our germs to ourselves. About a third of the way through our third viewing of The Secret L…
I once asked you, “why?” You said I was asking for it. Budding breasts peeking through a long sleeved crew neck. Bony arms accenting a lanky, curveless frame. Who can understand I didn’t want “it” though? I never asked to be afraid of sleeping on the sofa. I never asked to feel l…
In this interview, Sandra Clark Jergensen talks to Amber Hertzog Weiss about how her collage art explores faith and being through juxtaposing images of Jesus Christ, ancestors, temples, scriptures, and more. Your work is so vivid, surprising, delightful, and engaging. It uses Lat…
He came in a tiny tupperware container with a $4 price tag, the last lonely betta fish on the Petco shelf. The brainchild of my partner’s love language, gifts, and mine, animals. He was to be my office companion, but then the pandemic happened, so he took up residence in the corn…
It wouldn’t be the last time I felt touched by the kindness of a stranger on this journey. The full content of this post is available to subscribers. Subscribe now or log in!
And having his ghost nearby felt warm, like an invisible blanket. I was happy to live in a secret haunted house. The full content of this post is available to subscribers. Subscribe now or log in!
I learned family history the old-school, traditionally Mormon way: filling out hundreds of pieces of paper that went into binders full of names. Young women activities in the library, staring at microfiche. Proud stories from leaders about how they had traced multiple lines of th…
We want this issue to reflect a new kind of thought about family history.
Chances are that I would never find my family by simply clicking a link on a phone app. The full content of this post is available to subscribers. Subscribe now or log in!
I sat across from my genetic counselor as she filled out the strangest family history chart I’d ever seen. I rocked my newborn baby girl and answered the counselor’s questions about the name, birth year, death year, known illnesses, and cause of death for ancestors four generatio…