Description
Book SynopsisSzpiech draws on medieval Christian, Jewish, and Muslim polemics to investigate the role of narrative in the representation of conversion. By investigating conversion not as individual experience but as expression of communal visions of history, he shows how the narratives dramatize the conflict of ideas in disputational writing.
Trade Review"In this book Ryan Szpiech has brought us a cogently argued, rigorously researched, and thoughtfully constructed theory of conversion narrative in the Middle Ages. His overall argument is compellingly simple: individual narratives of conversion are as much about the histories of religions as they are about the histories of individuals. . . . Szpiech demonstrates this thesis in a series of rigorous, close readings of conversion narratives written by Jews, Christians, and Muslims in an impressive range of languages." *
Speculum *
"This wide-ranging, erudite study brings a welcome new perspective to the subject of medieval interfaith polemics. . . . Szpiech's impressive analytical and linguistic skills have allowed him to produce a work of singular value, which will undoubtedly open up new lines of research for the future." *
Catholic Historical Review *
"Szpiech's insightful reading of a variety of conversion narratives produced within the Abrahamic religions between the ninth and the sixteenth century has produced this densely textured and important book which launches the study of conversion into new territory." *
The Medieval Review *
"A remarkably learned, ambitious, and important study.
Conversion and Narrative will make a signal contribution to medieval studies in general, but more particularly to literary studies, intellectual history, and religious studies." * Thomas E. Burman, University of Tennessee *
"This impressive book bridges the fields of religious studies and comparative literature in order to produce close and sophisticated readings of conversion narratives from the later Middle Ages across a broad array of languages (Latin, Castilian/Catalan, Arabic, and Hebrew). Very few scholars can move so gracefully among these languages and areas of scholarship while offering insights from the minutiae of philological analysis to high literary theory, reflections on the nature of religion, and notions of the self." * Jonathan Decter, Brandeis University *
Table of ContentsNote on Names, Titles, Citations, and Transliteration
Introduction: Conversion and History
1. From Peripety to Prose: Tracing the Pauline and Augustinian Paradigms
2. Alterity and Auctoritas: Reason and the Twelfth-Century Expansion of Authority
3. In the Shadow of the Khazars: Narrating the Conversion to Judaism
4. A War of Words: Translating Authority in Thirteenth-Century Polemic
5. The Jargon of Authenticity: Abner of Burgos/Alfonso of Valladolid and the Paradox of Testimony
6. The Supersessionist Imperative: Islam and the Historical Drama of Revelation
Conclusion: Polemic as Narrative
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
