Versions of Deconversion

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 analyze the ways in which they have interpreted loss. For some the experience of deconversion led to atheism or agnosticism, and others used deconversion as a metaphor or analogy to interpret an experience of personal transformation.

Versions of Deconversion should appeal at once to scholars in the fields of religious studies and theology who are concerned with narrative texts, to literary critics and specialists on autobiography, and to a wider audience interested in the ethical and religious significance of autobiography.

John D. Barbour is Professor of Religion at St. Olaf College. His previous book include Tragedy as a Critique of Virtue: The Novel and Ethical Reflection and The Conscience of the Autobiographer: Ethical and Religious Dimensions of Autobiography