It is exciting to see our first set of publications based on the research conducted and presented by the team!

Most of the contributions to this volume were first presented at a workshop held at IIT Delhi in December 2015, entitled “Narratives of Transformation: Language, Conversion, and Indian Traditions of ‘Autobiography.’” Our intention was to situate our study of conversion accounts to Christianity within a broader context in South Asia by including conversion between other religious traditions and historical periods, to give our study historical depth and comparative range across religious cultures. You can read more about the conference here. We also invited presenters from otherconference panels we organised in order to include a wide variety of conversion narratives.

We hope you will click on the links below to read our articles published in South Asia: A Journal of South Asian Studies 41:2 (2018).

For an introduction to the special section see ‘Narratives of Transformation Religious Conversion and Indian Traditions of ‘Life Writing’ by Hephzibah Israel and John Zavos. I’ve listed the rest of the articles individually for ease of access:

Deepra Dandekar, Translation and the Christian Conversion of Women in Colonial India: Rev. Sheshadri and Bala Sundarabai Thakur.

Matthias Frenz, Truth by Narration–Why Autobiographical Conversion Accounts are so Compelling: The Case of H.A. Kaundinya, the First Indian Pastor in the Basel Mission.

Hephzibah Israel, Conversion, Memory and Writing: Remembering and Reforming the Self.

Chloe Martinez, The Autobiographical Pose: Life Narrative and Religious Transformation in the Mirabai Tradition.

Sipra Mukherjee, In Opposition and Allegiance to Hinduism: Exploring the Bengali Matua Hagiography of Harichand Thakur.

Mohinder Singh, ‘A Question of Life and Death’: Conversion, Self and Identity in Swamu Shraddhanand’s Autobiography.

Milind Wakankar, The Crisis of Religion: Christianity and Conversion in the Marathi Nineteenth Century.