Telephone number:	+31 (0)71 527 2790
E-Mail:	l.j.stelling@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department:	Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for Cultural Disciplines, Moderne Engelstalige letterkunde
Office Address:	Witte Singel-complex P.N. van Eyckhof 4 2311 BV Leiden Room number 2.01a
Telephone number:	+31 (0)71 527 2790
E-Mail:	l.j.stelling@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department:	Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for Cultural Disciplines, Moderne Engelstalige letterkunde
Office Address:	Witte Singel-complex P.N. van Eyckhof 4 2311 BV Leiden Room number 2.01a

---

Fields of interest

• (Literary) representations of religious conversion
• Early modern English literature and culture, especially drama
• Literary theory

Research

Religious Conversion in Early Modern English Drama   

The wide-spread and multifaceted phenomenon of religious conversion in early modern England goes to the heart of a number of existential questions facing the people of this period. Indeed, the religious upheavals of the early modern period gave the issue of conversion an unprecedented urgency. Whereas critical analyses of early modern conversion are often based on (auto)biographical texts, this study uses works of drama as a main source, in this way shedding light on conversion as a social and cultural phenomenon from the perspective of theatre audiences rather than converts themselves. 

As one of the major public sites in which issues of conversion were exposed and examined, the early modern theatre lends itself perfectly for an investigation of how early modern understandings of religion and religious identity were formed. What was the significance of self-determination in conversion? To what extent was conversion a change of inner conviction and not just outward behaviour now that religious allegiance had become closely intertwined with the political pressure of religious conformity, and with commercial and other worldly temptations luring people into dissimulation and pretence? What did Englishness mean if it was easy and attractive to exchange one of its fundamentals, English Protestantism, for that of the Spanish enemy, or worse, for the “inferior” religion of the Turk? Indeed, what was the intrinsic value of religion itself if it could be exchanged? These are some of the typical questions addressed in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Philip Massinger's The Renegado, Lewis Wager's The Life and Repentaunce of Mary Magdalene and tens of other plays. 

The study hinges on a distinction between what I term “spiritual” and “interfaith” conversion, which presupposes an analogous difference between spiritual and denominational faith. The division firstly enables me to explore how, during the early modern period, religion experienced as a private, spiritual relationship with God increasingly gave way to the experience of faith in its variegated organized, politicized denominational forms. Secondly, it allows me to trace and analyze a number of telling patterns in the theatrical depiction of conversion from any non-Christian faith to Christianity that indicate a profound anxiety about the very concept of conversion itself.  

Teaching activities

2008-2012	Lit 2 (BA) English Literature, ca. 1550-1700
2008-2011	Exorcists, Blasphemers and Renegades: Religious Struggle in Early Modern English Literature (MA), in collaboration with Dr. Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen)
2009-2011	Shakespeare in Theory (BA), VU University Amsterdam

Curriculum Vitae

Since September 2007: PhD candidate, Leiden University
Sept - Dec 2011: Research fellow at the University of York
2004 – 2006: Research MA Literary Studies (cum laude), Utrecht University
2003 – 2004: Student fellowship (Harting Scholar) English Language and Literature, University College London
2001 – 2004: BA English Language and Culture (cum laude), Utrecht University

Key publications