"Introducing Religious
Studies: Conversion"
This course is an introduction to the subject of conversion. It will focus on the following
questions: Why does an individual leave one set of beliefs for another? How does this take
place? What are the practical consequences for the new believer? How does a conversion change
the convert's relationship to the world around him or her? With these questions in mind, we will
begin by reading texts that define conversion in academic terms and then will apply those terms
to fictional and non-fictional case studies, specifically the autobiography of Faith Adiele, the
biography of Malcolm X, and the literature of Graham Greene and Chuck Palahniuk.
