Archetypes of Conversion

Archetypes of Conversion
Author :
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages : 192
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781725234086
ISBN-13 : 1725234084
Rating : 4/5 (86 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Archetypes of Conversion by : Anne Hunsaker Hawkins

Download or read book Archetypes of Conversion written by Anne Hunsaker Hawkins and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2014-03-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sensitive and imaginative study explores the phenomenon of conversion in three major religious autobiographies: the Confessions of Saint Augustine, Grace Abounding by John Bunyan, and Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain. These three religious figures could hardly be more different, and yet, as Hawkins shows, their conversion narratives are remarkably similar in patterns of theme, figure, and action. This archetypal approach is particularly appropriate to spiritual autobiography, which is less concerned with "self" than with "soul" and which seeks to relate the individual to a divine reality that is universal and timeless. Hawkins' approach to these texts is sophisticated, yet free of jargon and doctrinaire psychologizing. Here, archetypal analysis becomes not an end in itself, but also a means to investigate the complexity of the individual text. Hawkins' archetypal analysis serves not only to discern continuities, but also to explore cultural, ideological, and psychological variations. Adapting William James's distinction between crisis and lysis conversion, Hawkins shows that the conversion paradigm central to each autobiography determines its religious meaning, its formal structure, and its archetypal emphases. The author approaches the phenomena of conversion with a blend of critical detachment and imaginative sympathy. She is always careful to honor the authenticity of religious experience, and for this reason her commentary succeeds in illuminating it. The result is an interdisciplinary study that will appeal to the psychologist and literary critic as well as the student of religion. But these narratives of conversion offer paradigms that apply to any deeply significant change, for they are of interest and concern to all readers seeking to find meaning in their lives. Hawkins makes us feel both the immediacy and the permanence of these texts, for "What is human in them speaks to what is human in us."


Archetypes of Conversion Related Books

Archetypes of Conversion
Language: en
Pages: 192
Authors: Anne Hunsaker Hawkins
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-03-07 - Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This sensitive and imaginative study explores the phenomenon of conversion in three major religious autobiographies: the Confessions of Saint Augustine, Grace A
Understanding Religious Conversion
Language: en
Pages: 268
Authors: Lewis Ray Rambo
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 1993-01-01 - Publisher: Yale University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Looking at a wide variety of religions, this work offers an exploration of religious conversion. The phenomena is approached from a variety of disciplines, incl
Versions of Deconversion
Language: en
Pages: 264
Authors: John D. Barbour
Categories: Language Arts & Disciplines
Type: BOOK - Published: 1994 - Publisher: University of Virginia Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Versions of Deconversion John Barbour examines the work of a broad selection of authors in order to discover the reasons for their loss of faith and to analy
Conversion Narratives in Early Modern England
Language: en
Pages: 262
Authors: Abigail Shinn
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-10-04 - Publisher: Springer

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book is a study of English conversion narratives between 1580 and 1660. Focusing on the formal, stylistic properties of these texts, it argues that there i
Missions and Conversions
Language: en
Pages: 243
Authors: T. Pearson
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-06-22 - Publisher: Springer

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This study offers a fresh reading of religious conversion by analyzing a variety of "missionaries" that sought to influence the Montagnard-Dega refugee. Thomas