The Complexity of Conversion - Intersectional Perspectives on Religious Change in Antiquity and Beyond - Valérie Nicolet

The Complexity of Conversion - Intersectional Perspectives on Religious Change in Antiquity and Beyond - Valérie Nicolet

What Is So Complex About "Conversion"?

The Complexity of Conversion - Intersectional Perspectives on Religious Change in Antiquity and Beyond - Valérie Nicolet

Marianne Bjelland Kartzow [+-]
University of Oslo
Marianne Bjelland Kartzow is professor of New Testament Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway. She has published Gossip and Gender: Othering of Speech in the Pastoral Epistles (2009) and Destabilizing the Margins: An Intersectional Approach to Early Christian Memory (2012). Her research interest includes Gender theory, social history and studies of sacred scriptures.
Valérie Nicolet [+-]
Institut protestant de théologie, faculté de Paris
Since 2013, Valérie Nicolet is “maître de conférences” at the Institut protestant de théologie, faculté de Paris, where she teaches New Testament and Ancient Greek. In her research, she focuses on the Pauline letters. At the moment, she is working on the rhetorical construction of the law in Galatians. Her scholarship highlights interdisciplinary approaches, more prominently with philosophy, and recently, with queer theory. She has published a book on the construction of the self in Romans (Constructing the Self: Thinking with Paul and Michel Foucault, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2012).

Description

Conversion is a contested religious, political, and personal phenomenon. There is more at stake than simply a private question concerning which god, or gods, one wants to recognize and serve. Furthermore, the meaning of conversion changes across time and place. Conversion requires embodiment of new social and religious practices, but also a total change of orientation, a change of worldview, a change in lifeworld. Yet many people are, and were, not in control of their own lives. They find, and found, themselves in a position where they do not have the agency to control their loyalty to a certain religious system. What does conversion mean for them? This book addresses the complexity of conversion and uses a range of cases, primary sources, and theories, to do so. It also initiates a dialogue between ancient sources and current concepts or practices. The essays in this volume are interested in interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and cross-historical perspectives. Early Christian and Jewish texts play a central role in this volume, but the volume also discusses how sacred texts and their reception influence the way we think, more broadly, about conversion as religious change.

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Citation

Kartzow, Marianne; Nicolet, Valérie. What Is So Complex About "Conversion"?. The Complexity of Conversion - Intersectional Perspectives on Religious Change in Antiquity and Beyond. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 1-20 Oct 2021. ISBN 9781781795736. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=32023. Date accessed: 28 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.32023. Oct 2021

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