Dr Lori Taylor

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Publications

Who am I now?

I have an article coming out soon in an anthology. Rather than starting from an old academic bio for the requisite author biography, I started from a helpful “how to grad school” outline. When I was in grad school and the Wild West internet was new, I had no such outline. I love doing all of this over again. 

This is who I am now. 

Lori Elaine Taylor is an independent scholar with a specialization in propaganda, persuasion, and the slippery stories people tell themselves about their collective pasts. Her work includes religion and racism, music and music communities, and labor history. Lori completed her Ph.D. at the University at Buffalo and her M.A. at The George Washington University. The John Whitmer Historical Association awarded her “Best Dissertation” for “Telling Stories about Mormons and Indians.” She recently published flash fiction, “Latter-day Confederacy of Many Nations,” in the alternate history anthology, States of Deseret. Her superpowers are writing Python and speaking Finnish.

Singing Hero is coming next

After some Twitter interaction about Bob Dylan, I heard from two people that they would like to read my Master’s thesis: The Politicized American Legend of the Singing Hero: Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen (Master’s thesis, The George Washington University. 1989). I did request that people let me know if which of my articles and other works they would like to see next, so this is next.

I don’t have any idea where my final copy of it lives now, but it turns out I sent my mother a near final draft (“Some day in 1989”?), and I found this copy in her papers. Slowly these 144 dot-matrix pages will be digitized.

This will be the main page for the full text:

The Politicized American Legend of the Singing Hero

Note: In 28 years plus, a lot has happened to extend the narratives of singing heroes. I aspire to tell that story, but this story is frozen in the late 1980s.

Bonus: Eleven years after my mother’s death, I’m hearing her in my head as I read her notes on this copy. I still have a difficult time reading her writing.

Not a bonus: I find plenty of opportunity for pain while reading my 21-25-year old self’s cringe-worth version of academic speak. I wrote this after I worked as an editor for a publishing house, writing back cover copy, following my boss’s orders to “Pop it up!” So, it’s better than it could have been. A generation working in marketing leaves me better at popping it up now, so I only see the gap in my voice (and grammar) over time.

Signed a Contract And, that's exciting

Joseph Smith and Handsome Lake article

I have written exactly one piece of fiction—flash fiction called “Latter-day Confederacy of Nations,” which soon will be included in an anthology of alt history called States of Deseret. I signed the contract today. Also today, I delivered a scholarly article on Joseph Smith and Handsome Lake for a collection on Mormons and Indians to be published by University of Utah Press. Same subject, two completely different approaches. Making it all up was much more difficult. I spent three months researching a two-page story. I only spent about a year researching and writing the 65 pages that became the article. If you want to know how my renewed interest in writing and publishing goes, comment or send me a message.