Adam McLain
Adam McLain is a PhD student in the department of English at the University of Connecticut and an incoming 1L at UConn Law. He researches and writes on dystopian literature, legal theory, and sexual justice. He has a BA in English, editing, and women’s studies from Brigham Young University, a master of theological studies, emphasizing in women, gender, sexuality, and religion, from Harvard University, and a MA in English from the University of Connecticut.
Not with Musket Fire, but with a whisper
Today I woke to smoke from apostolic musket fire. Inappropriate and vitriolic as the rhetoric of Elder Holland was, Latter-day Saint theology does not find God in the musket fire, but in the whispering wind that dissipates the smoke.
Published: Review of Make Yourselves Gods
I wrote a review of Peter Coviello's Make Yourselves Gods for the American Academy of Religion's review website Reading Religions.
On Gratitude and Justice
The global faith leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently asked all practitioners to engage in a #GiveThanks campaign on social media. Simply put, religious practitioners were asked to post daily about things they are grateful for.
CFP: Mormonism and SF, SFRA Review
I am rather thrilled to announce that I will be editing a selection of essays for SFRA Review (51.3, summer 2021) on Mormonism and SF. The full CFP can be found here.
A Sunflower Reflection; or, On My Fears of Forgiveness
As a murderer lies dying, the representative of the murdered hears his confession. In essence, it is a double confession: words spoken from the mouth of the Nazi of the atrocities committed during his reign as superhuman; thoughts reflected upon in the mind of the Jew of the atrocities committed during his imprisonment as subhuman.
Essaying; or, Why I Blog
To Think
Writing is a spiritual experience. It is a movement toward greater understanding of myself and the world around me. It is a journey toward apotheosis as I come to know my humanity better through the words I write. I write because it allows me to ruminate on a subject, not coming to a definitive conclusion, but rather opening the door to understanding, even in just a little way, the simple complexity and complex simplicity of the universe that surrounds us.
To Share
Writing is a communal experience. It is meant to communicate thoughts across words in order to form other thoughts in other beings. Those thoughts do not come perfectly thought-for-thought, word-for-word, but in their imperfection, there is a connection, a community that is formed between you and me. A joining. A unity.
To Experience
Writing is an experience. Taking the time to consider something and then to write about it allows one to experience and re-experience an event, a moment, a text.