Seeing Things

“Allred articulates in this ambitious entry some fascinating connections between Latter-day Saint theology, technology, and identity formation . . . . Deeply conversant in critical theory, the author establishes inventive arguments supported by examples that convincingly show the range of media’s power to change culture. Scholars of religion or media will find much to consider.”—Publishers Weekly

“Getting a better look at how everyday Mormons navigated the shifting landscape of belief in a disenchanted world is a highlight of this book. . . . Allred teaches his readers about art’s entanglement in this arena.”—Journal of the American Academy of Religion

“Historians will find much to love in Seeing Things. . . . Mason Allred has produced an impressive demonstration of how religion, culture, and media have intersected in dynamic and revealing ways across the evolution of one of America’s most significant societal forces.”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly

“Seeing Things is an engaging text that sits at the crossroads of several fields. . . . Allred provides readers with a robust addition to both media and religious studies that hints at the academic potential that lies behind cross-disciplinary studies.”—Reading Religion

“Allred’s description of ways of ‘seeing’ through visual technology is an intriguing premise that could inspire analysis of other religious traditions’ relationship with technology. Allred’s book will also be valuable to specifically LDS scholars working in media studies, as it has much to say about how dependent the trajectory of the church was on technology.”—Technology and Culture

“Media scholars, take note: Mason Kamana Allred’s Seeing Things is a haunting must-read that will leave you ghost hunting across other lanes of media history.”—Dialogue

“Allred’s study is a noteworthy contribution not only for scholars of Mormonism but also for anyone interested in a better understanding of material objects that are utilized as mediums of meaning and expression within the context of religion.”—Journal of Religion

“Seeing Things provides thought-provoking analysis regarding assemblages of humans, non-humans, and ideas. Allred effectively demonstrates how Mormonism, as a series of visions, developed out of its media practices, which have distinguished latter-day saints as a religious community and channeled their Church’s trajectories. . . . [A] must-read for those interested in media, Mormon, and secular studies.”—American Religion

“Allred offers a detailed exploration of the interplay between vision, media, and materiality in the development of the Mormon faith. . . . This work provides a framework from which to add depth and a novel perspective to a range of diverse cultural phenomena outside explicitly religious domains, demonstrating how media and material culture function as mutually constitutive forces in shaping collective experience and institutional continuity.”—Religious Studies Review

“American Mormonism is a religion of seers. What does it mean to see things? Mason Kamana Allred answers: it means to speculate by media, and the media of Mormonism help its practitioners to see at distances, over space and far back into time, beyond death into the everyday here and now. Seeing Things, with its lively pen and gift for bringing forth hidden treasures from the archives, serves both as the pioneering Mormon media history and as spectacles for seeing beyond.”—John Durham Peters, Yale University