HOTT, MARTIN, FLAKE. 2018. VISUALIZATION OF COMPLEX FAMILIAL AND SOCIAL STRUCTURES. ELECTRONIC IMAGING, BURLINGAME, CA.
Abstract: Visualizations are widely used when working with family and genealogical structures, both to navigate through the generations and to provide overview information about the family as a whole. Our research investigates the concept of “marriage” in the complex and polygamous familial structures of Mormon society in mid-1800s Nauvoo, IL, including several definitions of marital and relational ties. We have found current visualizations to be insufficient in fully expressing this complexity. We present visualizations based on chord and flow diagrams to capture the locality and cohesiveness of larger and more complex family units and encapsulate familial dynamics into the nodes of their overall lineage. Each family unit is portrayed as a chord diagram adapted to display intra-familial relationships with a left-to-right generational flow and chords indicating relationships between participants. Zooming out, we depict the overall lineage as a modified flow diagram with the family units as nodes, connected with others based on the participants; each hyper-edge links an individual’s family of birth to her adult marriage.
HOTT, MARTIN, FLAKE. 2016. VISUALIZING DYNAMICS OF COMPLEX FAMILIAL STRUCTURES (POSTER). IEEE INFORMATION VISUALIZATION, BALTIMORE, MD.
A poster guide through visualizing lineages and family units. Documents the goals and data of the Nauvoo Marriage Project.
HOTT, MARTIN, FLAKE. 2016. IDENTITY LENSES IN ANALYZING EVOLVING SOCIAL STRUCTURES. DIGITAL HUMANITIES, KRAKOW, POLAND.
Abstract: In the effort to capture cultural dynamics, scholars have considered social networks, that is, a graph with people as nodes and their relationships as edges. These social networks are useful; however, to capture dynamics they must be considered over time. In the literature, Time-Varying Graphs (TVGs) have been defined (Aggarwal and Subbian, 2014; Casteigts et al., 2012; Casteigts et al., 2013). In our investigations, we have found benefit in defining TVGs with nodes as societal structures and people as the edges and then considering the dynamics of the societal structures evidenced in the TVGs (Hott et al., 2014; Hott et al., 2015). Here we consider two motivating applications for our extensions to TVGs: early Mormon marital structures and an arXiv.org citation network…
FLAKE. 2016. ORDERING ANTINOMY: EARLY MORMONISM’S PRIESTLY OFFICES, COUNCILS, AND KINSHIP. JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND AMERICAN CULTURE, 26, 2 (SUMMER, 2016): 139-183.
Abstract: Where “two or three are gathered together in my name,” God is present, the Christian faithful are promised. Where many more are gathered, it seems less of a sure thing. Large numbers appear to inspire the presence of an earthly, not heavenly hierarchy. This is the predicament faced by all would-be holy assemblies. How does one properly govern a human community dedicated to divine purposes? The American answer, from its earliest Pilgrim beginnings, was that one does not; rather, all do. American Protestant ecclesiology was largely a creation of the various types of congregational revolt against England’s religious establishment, as well as Reformation opposition to Rome’s assertion of priestly prerogatives…
FLAKE. 2015. EARLY LATTER-DAY SAINT MARRIAGE RITES, 1831-1853. JOURNAL OF MORMON HISTORY, 41, 1 (JANUARY 2015), 77-103.
Abstract: Records show early Mormonism rejecting, over a remarkably short period of time, Christian marriage’s traditional role as a defense against carnality. Instead, Mormonism made marriage a locus of its priesthood restorationism and its marriage rite gave men and women rights to access heavenly powers to accomplish divine purposes here and in the hereafter. Thus, marriage was eternal in both senses of the word. It was a means of inculcating the divine nature and of creating ties that transcended the limits of time and mortality. It was not only the pattern for this world, but the world to come. This was new, an extraordinary recalculation of centuries of tradition.
FLAKE. 2009. THE EMOTIONAL AND PRIESTLY LOGIC OF PLURAL MARRIAGE. UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS, UTAH STATE UNIV., FIFTEENTH ANNUAL ARRINGTON LECTURE (OCT, 2009).
Abstract: The Latter-day Saint practice of plural marriage is generally considered to have been an instrument of social control, over both men and women, but especially oppressive of women. Since It must be admitted that each of these charges has been brought against monogamy and the historical record shows that some Saints flourished under polygamy, this consensus does not adequately explain the plural marriage. This paper revisits the question and concludes that the ideology and practice of “plurality” expressed a positive ethic and religious identity related to the priestly character of early Mormon marriage, especially as it related to women and contradicted American nineteenth-century marital ideals.