Communal Studies Association, 2010 New Harmony, Indiana ...

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innovations. Such innovations claim to provide the contemporary agent with greater access to ―autonomy‖ andself-actualization. Yet buried within this milieu of liberal-capitalist determinism and truisms lies the realrelationship and potential between/for the individual self and community. Politics must not divide or externalize,but can be imagined and constituted along a shared subjective experience of community by regaining our senseof play. In developing this thesis, Morgan turns to segments of the 1960s counterculture who provide examplesof community through play, where space, both physical and liminal, is produced through shared reflections andcollective discourse. The process of ―dropping out‖, while often carrying a stigma of refusal, represented thereal attempt to experiment with and play through space. Looking specifically at Stephen Gaskin, this paperintends to explore the ways in which Gaskin‘s communal classrooms (Monday Night Class, during the Caravanand on the Farm) represent an attempt to play with our collective experience, to challenge the ways in which thetechnocratic imperative of the 1960s pushed the individual further and further into isolation and consumption.Such an exploration will hopefully lead us back to play, to a shared position from which we can learn toconstruct more fluid and democratic communities.Morgan Shipley is a PhD candidate in American Studies at Michigan State University. He earned his BA inPolitical Science from DePaul University and his MA in Social Science with an emphasis in Political Theory fromthe University of Chicago. His research centers broadly on the history, nature, and manifestation of AmericanRadicalism. More specifically, he is interested in the intersection between political/social theory and popularculture and the ways that radicalism creates space for transformation, looking chiefly at the 1960s. Morgan isalso interested in literature of dissent as a popular expression of radicalism.Session 5-BNineteenth-Century Communalism(Thrall‟s Opera House)“Paean to Big Brick: Bishop Hill‟s Architecture and the Commitment to Communal Life”Jon Wagner, Knox CollegeA key controversy surrounding the nineteenth century Swedish colony at Bishop Hill, Illinois concerns whethersectarian leader Eric Janson intended the colony to be communal, or whether (as some followers later claimed)communalism was only a temporary expedient to facilitate the emigration and initial establishment of thecommunity. Much light can be shed on this question through an examination of Bishop Hill's architecture, whichfavored buildings singularly unsuited to single-family living, culminating with the last building erected duringJanson's lifetime, the megalithic Big Brick. Using floor plans and historical photographs, this paper willdocument the community‘s architectural investment in communalism, the problems this presented for later noncommunalliving, and some speculations on the reasons for conflicting post-communal interpretations of BishopHill's commitment to communalism.Jon Wagner is Professor of Anthropology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. His doctoral work at IndianaUniversity (PhD 1975) was based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Midwestern religious commune. His academicwritings have touched on both contemporary and historic communal societies, with particular reference toBishop Hill, a subject of scholarship over the past 37 years. His other interests include utopian philosophy,futuristic visions and narratives of progress, and the evolution of human cooperation.“Reports of Progress: Alcander Longley‟s Newspapers”Jeff Wells, Texas Christian UniversityAlcander Longley (1832-1918) organized secular utopian communities and published newspapers thatpromoted the communitarian cause. Longley, a printer from Cincinnati, joined the North American Phalanx,America‘s largest Fourierist community, in 1853 and soon commenced publishing the Index. Longley later24
sought to promote his own phalanx and launched the Phalansterian Record in December 1857. Longleychanged the newspaper‘s name to Social Record in August 1858 to mark his adoption of Christian Communism.After briefly living among the French Icarians at Corning, Iowa, Longley adopted the opinion that only theabolition of private property and the voluntary adoption of communal living would prevent such social andeconomic discontent as shook the country in the late nineteenth century. Longley moved to St. Louis and beganpublishing The Communist. Longley used The Communist (1868-1885) and its successor, The Altruist (1885-1917) to promote the communities he founded throughout southern Missouri.Jeff Wells is a doctoral student in history at Texas Christian University. Wells graduated Summa Cum Laudefrom Missouri Southern State University in 2001 with a bachelor‘s degree in history. He graduated fromMissouri State University in 2008 with a master‘s degree in history. His master‘s thesis, ―The Communist andthe Altruist: Alcander Longley‘s Newspapers and Communities,‖ studies the career of a nineteenth-centuryMissouri utopian. Wells worked as a journalist before pursuing his doctoral degree in history. His journalismcareer included stints as a staff writer at daily newspapers in Missouri and Kansas and as editor of a businessjournal.“David Lamson: Bruised Idealist, Utopian Wanderer”Peter Hoehnle, Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development CouncilThis study examines the life and career of the Shaker apostate, David Rich Lamson (1806 - 1886) author of theoften referenced account, Two Years' Experience Among the Shakers. Lamson's life, from his early career as aUniversalist minister, his abolition, peace, and temperance advocacy, his involvement with the HopedaleCommunity, his residence at Hancock Shaker Village, and, finally, his later campaign against the Shakers, wasan unsuccessful personal search for utopia. Exploration of previously unexplored sources allows us toreconstruct the history of this unique individual and his reform and utopian interests. Finally, research intosurviving Hancock Shaker documents permits an objective examination of the material contained in Lamson‘santi-Shaker writings, allowing for the verification of particular details included in his account.Peter Hoehnle received his doctorate from Iowa State University in 2003. He serves on the board of theCommunal Studies Association and as the project manager for the Iowa Valley Resource Conservation andDevelopment Council in Amana, Iowa.Session 5-CWomen, Family, and Sexuality(Gymnasium)“Shaker Debates on Celibacy”Stephen C. Taysom, Cleveland State UniversityDespite the rigor with which the Shakers held to the principle of celibacy, there were moments when the practicebecame a point of contestation within Shaker leadership circles. This paper examines one such heretoforeunknown episode which occurred in the 1840s. The Shaker requirement of celibacy, including the dissolution ofconverts‘ marriages, tended to limit the group‘s appeal among men, and obviously precluded the naturalincrease of church membership that would have occurred had Shakers been permitted to have children. Thispaper details a heated debate between Shaker leaders. One side argued for an approach to celibacy whichwould allow those of slightly less spiritual stature to have sexual relations under controlled conditions for thesole purpose of ―raising up seed‖ among the Shakers. Opposing this radical proposal was the majority ofShaker leaders, who saw in it not only an invitation to lust, but also a disturbing willingness to respond to thecrisis of dwindling membership through adaptation rather than revelation.25
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