Dynamiken der Religionsgeschichte zwischen Asien und Europa
Panel
IAHR Kongress ||| Panel
Embedding Religions: Converting Figures and Conversion Stories
Panelleitung: Carmen Meinert (CERES)
The panel presents the ongoing work of the interdisciplinary group “Buddhism in Motion” on conversion narratives. Stories about the conversion of communities are understood as analytical instruments to investigate ways of ‘making sense’ of the introduction of a religion in a specific region. The objective of the papers presented at this panel is twofold: an investigation of the object-language level and one of the meta-language level.
Firstly, papers aim at characterising the dialectics of conversion accounts with respect to:
agent(s) of conversion and the strategies implemented,
justification of the propagation of the religious faith,
description of the converted other and
repercussions of the conversion.
As narrated reconstructions of the past, conversion stories are not merely an expression of the agenda of a religious community but also of dynamics which go beyond the religious field. It is these underlying strings that the group seeks to unravel as a second step.
Mit: Stephen Eskildsen (ehem. KHK fellow), Lisa Wevelsiep (CERES), Robert Mayer (ehem. KHK fellow) & Licia di Giaconti (KHK).
