South Coast Senior College

Of what does religious conversion consist? There has been and continues to be alot of conversion in our American world.  We will see conversion as an integral part of the entire life of the convert, a part in which the convert has considerable creative agency.  We will look especially for both changes and continuities in converts’ lives across the conversion itself by consulting detailed case materials, some of them arising from my own research.  We will want to grasp conversion from the convert’s point oƒ view……. how the convert understands and experiences it, what it feels like and tastes like and smells like to the convert.  We will get to know a couple of religious converts real well.  Some lecture, more discussion

SUGGESTED reading .  Shirley Nelson.  THE LAST YEWAR OF THE WAR(new from Amazon at $30, used at $5.27 or less); and an unpublished ms., to be circulated among all class members at no costt.

Your instructor:

Steven Piker is an anthropologist. He has done field work in Thailand and the U.S. His main interests include religion, American Indians and human evolution. He taught for 44 years at Swarthmore College. Four of our Maine senior colleges have provided his popular coiurses.

Starts March 10  1-3pm