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Rating: 
Summary: Explores religious conversion in multiple cultural settings
Review: This volume paints a picture of conversion far more complex than its customary image in anthropology and religious studies. Conversion is very seldom simply a sudden moment of insight or inspiration; it is a change both of individual consciousness and of social belonging, of mental attitude and of physical experience, whose unfolding depends both on its cultural setting and on the distinct individuals who undergo it. This book explores religious conversion in a variety of cultural settings and considers how anthropological approaches can help us understand the phenomenon. Fourteen case studies span historical and geographical contexts, including the contemporary United States, modern and medieval Europe, and non-western societies in South Asia, Melanesia, and South America. Contributors discuss conversion to Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Spiritualism. Combining ethnographic description with theoretical analysis, authors consider the nature and meaning of conversion, its social and political dimensions, and its relationship to individual religious experience. Highly recommended. List of Contributors: Robert T. Anderson; Diane Austin-Broos; Thomas K.
Brown; Andrew Buckser; Simon Coleman; Maria Pia Di
Bella; Charles Farhadian; Stephen D. Glazier; Roger
Ivar Lohmann; Marcela Mendoza; Kalyani Devaki
Menon; Rebecca Sachs Norris; Robert J. Priest; Lewis
R. Rambo; Mary Ann Reidhead; Van A. Reidhead; Don
Seeman About The Editors: Andrew S. Buckser is an assistant professor of
anthropology at Purdue University. Stephen D. Glazier is a professor of anthropology at
the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
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