Clyde R. Forsberg's Books

Equal Rites

The Book of Mormon, Masonry, Gender, and American Culture

By: Clyde R. Forsberg

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Equal Rites

The Book of Mormon, Masonry, Gender, and American Culture

By: Clyde R. Forsberg

Both the Prophet Joseph Smith and his Book of Mormon have been characterized as ardently, indeed evangelically, anti-Masonic. Yet in this sweeping social, cultural, and religious history of nineteenth-century Mormonism and its milieu, Clyde Forsberg argues that masonry, like evangelical Christianity, was an essential component of Smith's vision. Smith's ability to imaginatively conjoin the two into a powerful and evocative defense of Christian, or Primitive, Freemasonry was, Forsberg shows, more than anything else responsible for the meteoric rise of Mormonism in the nineteenth century. This was to have significant repercussions for the development of Mormonism, particularly in the articulation of specifically Mormon gender roles. Mormonism's unique contribution to the Masonic tradition was its inclusion of women as active and equal participants in Masonic rituals. Early Mormon dreams of empire in the Book of Mormon were motivated by a strong desire to end social and racial discord, lest the country fall into the grips of civil war. Forsberg demonstrates that by seeking to bring women into previously male-exclusive ceremonies, Mormonism offered an alternative to the male-dominated sphere of the Master Mason. By taking a median and mediating position between Masonry and Evangelicism, Mormonism positioned itself as a religion of the people, going on to become a world religion. But the original intent of the Book of Mormon gave way as Mormonism moved west, and the temple and polygamy (indeed, the quest for empire) became more prevalent. The murder of Smith by Masonic vigilantes and the move to Utah coincided with a new imperialism--and a new polygamy. Forsberg argues that Masonic artifacts from Smith's life reveal important clues to the precise nature of his early Masonic thought that include no less than a vision of redemption and racial concord.

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353

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Columbia University Press

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ISBN 10

0231126409

ISBN 13

9780231126403

A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660 – 2016

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

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A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660 – 2016

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

What is the American Dream, truly? This American social, cultural, and working-class family history, spanning some four centuries, represents a deeply personal quest for an answer from an unlikely source, namely the author’s own European progenitors. Because of their Mormon faith, their stories have been preserved, but not told. What they have to say about the American Dream is noteworthy. For the huge bulk of the author’s immediate family, their American Dream was not the American Dream; their reports and narratives, in principle, stand well outside the fantastic story of “liberty and justice for all” in the “land of the brave.” Indeed, their economic fortunes, or lack thereof, did not conform to the pattern; and most failed to go from being the vanquished of Europe to the victorious of America. For their trouble, and largely because of their Mormonism, they were cast in the role of America’s Caliban. Their American Dream may have been only to wake up from what quickly became a nightmare, especially for the scores of women and children who paid the ultimate price. Importantly, A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660–2016 is a cautionary tale in an auto-ethnographical vein, and suggests that coming to the United States of America was often not worth such sacrifice.

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458

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1527520439

ISBN 13

9781527520431

The Persecution of Professors in the New Turkey

Expulsion of Excellence – A Facebook Book

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

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The Persecution of Professors in the New Turkey

Expulsion of Excellence – A Facebook Book

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

Scholars credit the European Renaissance and Enlightenment to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when Greek scholars in particular were driven from the Byzantine capital, taking with them everything they had learned about their own Greek intellectual heritage and classical philosophical tradition, thanks, in part, to the scholarly enterprise of Islamic scholasticism and a spirit of intellectual cooperation that had existed until that time. The “expulsion of excellence” that followed closely on the heels of Mehmed II’s military victory in 1453 proved problematic for an emergent, modern-Muslim, imperial power, which his capture of the Byzantine capital instigated, although it was a boon to European intellectual life. Five and a half centuries later, on the night of 15 July 2016, a failed coup attempt that took place in the twin Turkish capital cities of Istanbul and Ankara paved the way for another expulsion of excellence, this time the handiwork of the ruling AK Party and its strongman-cum-dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This volume tells the story of an American academic, Clyde R. Forsberg Jr., living and working in the AKP heartland of Turkey. A distinguished Professor in the Department of Western Languages and Literatures at Karabük University at the time, having relocated his entire family to Turkey two years prior, his children becoming fluent in Turkish by this time, and his wife, a native of Kyrgyzstan, slated to enter medical school in just a month’s time, the Forsbergs were forced to flee the country after he was detained by the police and tried for “aiding and abetting a terrorist organization.” Subsequently found innocent of all charges, Forsberg was nonetheless sacked, forced to clear out his office as University cameras rolled, adding insult to injury. Local online newspapers followed suit, publishing false and misleading stories about his arrest, targeting him and thus putting him and his entire family in danger. Other foreign faculty at Karabük University were likewise falsely charged, imprisoned, and, despite being found innocent of all charges, dismissed and forced to leave the country. A professional historian, American Studies scholar, and Open Society Institute alumnus, Forsberg recounts the events leading up to and following his arrest, employing a media studies approach, which asks hard questions of the role of social media in the preservation of democratic freedoms, which, in the wrong hands, became a very effective tool of the Turkish State and its suppression of democratic freedoms. In Forsberg’s case, his imprisonment and subsequent suspension were for the “crime” of posting a poem online that was critical of Karabük University and the country’s ruling AK Party’s so-called “purge” of foreign faculty.

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230

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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ISBN 10

1443893846

ISBN 13

9781443893848

All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

Love, Alienation and "Reconciliation" in a Big, Big Mormon Family

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

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All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

Love, Alienation and "Reconciliation" in a Big, Big Mormon Family

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

All the Kings Horses and All the Kings Men: Love, Alienation and Reconciliation in a Big, BIG Mormon Family recounts the horrors of life in a family of fourteen and a childhood worthy of the title Irish Catholic but in this case "American Mormon." For the author, the oldest born to Clyde Sr. and Virginia, had it not been for the extreme emotional and physical abuse he suffered, he might not quibble--the housework and childcare truly necessary evils. Two questions drive him out of the house and into the arms of academe. Why so many children? And whos to blame? His parents? Their patriarchal church? Ironically, he makes his escape about the same time his poor mother makes hers, chosing life on the streets over living with Clyde Sr. Spending the next fifteen or so years in and out of mental hospitals (in search of answers?), she will eventually come home to roost--to the shock and dismay of her older children at least, Clyde Jr. in particular. Gone is the fire in her belly. Thankfully, gone are most but not all of her children. Plans to re-marry secretly--with the assistance of church officials--will be averted only when the older children (who remember what "it" was like and fear for the two or three still at home) lodge a formal complaint. Clyde Sr. and Virginia will be indicted in a church court for "un-Christian-like conduct"--though no ruling is handed down. The end of the beginning or the beginning of the end? in fact it will be a little of both for the family in any event. And although the Mormon faith should not be blamed for the abuse--that honour going to mental illness--a demonstration of true moral courage and vision was not forthcoming and is perhaps telling.

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190

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Xlibris Corporation

Published Date

ISBN 10

1462838936

ISBN 13

9781462838936

B.H. Roberts, Moral Geography, and the Making of a Modern Racist

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.,Phillip Gordon Mackintosh

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B.H. Roberts, Moral Geography, and the Making of a Modern Racist

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.,Phillip Gordon Mackintosh

A transdisciplinary Mormon history, this book is a work of American religious history, theology, science history, and cultural and historical geography. It deconstructs the âraceâ creationism, White supremacy, and Christian imperialism of leading interwar Mormon theologian B.H. Roberts. Roberts hoped to introduce the front-rank post-Darwinian, scientific, and philosophical postulates of his timeâpolygeny, preadamitism, electromagnetism, idealism, the multiverse, infinity, and interstellar travelâto an increasingly fundamentalist Mormon establishment. Church authorities, however, including eventual âprophetâ Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., proscribed and rejected Robertsâ modernist manuscript, The Truth, The, Way, The Life: An Elementary Treatise on Theology, circa 1930. Paradoxically, however, Robertsâ thinking appeared uncited in Smithâs 1954 theology, Man, His Origin and Destiny. Here, Smith accelerated Robertsâ racism toward African Americans, while reviling science, philosophy, and free thought. This book contextualizes all such fundamentalist Mormon thinking within todayâs struggle for social and environmental justice, and especially the Black Lives Matter movement.

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355

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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ISBN 10

1527578674

ISBN 13

9781527578678

The Persecution of Professors in the New Turkey

Expulsion of Excellence – A Facebook Book

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

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The Persecution of Professors in the New Turkey

Expulsion of Excellence – A Facebook Book

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

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230

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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ISBN 10

1443893846

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9781443893848

A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660 – 2016

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

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A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660 – 2016

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

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458

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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1527520439

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9781527520431

Divine Rite of Kings

Land, Race, Same Sex, and Empire in Mormonism and the Esoteric Tradition

By: Clyde R. Forsberg (Jr.)

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Divine Rite of Kings

Land, Race, Same Sex, and Empire in Mormonism and the Esoteric Tradition

By: Clyde R. Forsberg (Jr.)

Divine Rite of Kings: Land, Race, Same Sex, and Empire in Mormonism and the Esoteric Tradition is a social-historical-political analysis of the religion of the Latter-day Saints as deeply indebted to a variety of esoteric systems of belief. It argues that the present campaign against gay marriage and other homophobic policies of the "American religion," targeting the LGBTQ community, and, indeed, children of same-sex parents, are connected to erstwhile racial doctrines and practices, which excluded persons from full fellowship on the basis of race alone, Africans the supposed offspring of Cain and Canaan and thus cursed. Narrow heterosexist notions of "sexual purity" merely replaced Anglo-Saxon supremacist notions of "racial purity" in the imperial and the millennial understanding of Mormonism. The new heterosexism, this book suggests, can be viewed as a form of boundary maintenance better suited to an emergent international church and world religion, ironically, which continues to make inroads in parts of Asia, where its social conservatism and, indeed, virulent attacks against the "gay and lesbian lifestyle," continue to attract followers.

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ISBN 10

1443885517

ISBN 13

9781443885515

Equal Rites

The Book of Mormon, Masonry, Gender, and American Culture

By: Clyde R. Forsberg

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Equal Rites

The Book of Mormon, Masonry, Gender, and American Culture

By: Clyde R. Forsberg

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353

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Columbia University Press

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0231126409

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9780231126403

Playing It by Ear

By: Clyde R. Forsberg

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Playing It by Ear

By: Clyde R. Forsberg

The author of All the King's Horses and All the King's Men: Love, Alienation, and "Reconciliation" in a Big, BIG Mormon Family (Xlibris, 2000) and the controversial Equal Rites: The Book of Mormon, Masonry, Gender, and American Culture (Columbia University Press, 2004) is at it again. American historian by day and Canadian jazz musician and playwright by night, Clyde R. Forsberg Jr. has also written five original "jazz-musicals." A word of explanation is required. These five plays, four of which have been tested on stage and not found wanting, do not obey many of the rules of so-called dramaturgy. The playwright has no real right or claim to the office or title of playwright. Having the good fortune to be able to call upon the help of a wide array of extremely talented musicians and actors, he brought forth a relatively new type of theatrical expression and experience a jazz and theatre synthesis that had an important historical, social justice, intellectual/musical, autobiographical, and monologue angles. Originally, the idea was for a history professor who played jazz to use the stage to convey a message of some historical importance, augmented by music, as an experiment to see whether the theatre was not a better medium than the classroom. There is no doubting the important fact that the public cast their vote . . . and quite decidedly in the affirmative, despite it all. And so, some record and testament to all the hard work that went into each and every one of these plays seems justified. A memoir of another sort, Playing It By Ear: The Jazz-Theatre of Clyde R. Forsberg Jr. explores such public events and social issues as the Canadian ice storm of 1998 and the urban-rural divide in Canadian society that it revealed, Louis Armstrong's arrangement and interpretation of "Black and Blue" and the relationship between racism and domestic abuse hidden between the lines, the end of the nuclear family and death-rattle of patriarchal authority evident at family holiday gatherings, the degree to which the penis as well as the vagina are taboo, and finally, what Forsberg's seven-year trek along the Silk Road (2003 2010) in search of self understanding and personal renewal would cost him but also reward him for venturing outside of the box.

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260

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Xlibris Corporation

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ISBN 10

1453582088

ISBN 13

9781453582084

All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

Love, Alienation and "Reconciliation" in a Big, Big Mormon Family

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

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All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

Love, Alienation and "Reconciliation" in a Big, Big Mormon Family

By: Clyde R. Forsberg Jr.

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

190

Publisher

Xlibris Corporation

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ISBN 10

1462838936

ISBN 13

9781462838936

Book's by Clyde R. Forsberg

Equal Rites

Equal Rites

A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660 – 2016

A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660 – 2016

The Persecution of Professors in the New Turkey

The Persecution of Professors in the New Turkey

All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

B.H. Roberts, Moral Geography, and the Making of a Modern Racist

B.H. Roberts, Moral Geography, and the Making of a Modern Racist

The Persecution of Professors in the New Turkey

The Persecution of Professors in the New Turkey

A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660 – 2016

A Most Extraordinary, Everyday Family Story of Coming to the New World, 1660 – 2016

Divine Rite of Kings

Divine Rite of Kings

Equal Rites

Equal Rites

Playing It by Ear

Playing It by Ear

All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

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