Augustine's Confessions

1 Credit · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

We will read Augustine’s autobiographical account of his long and difficult journey to come to a new vision of the world and himself in it. Augustine’s transformation consists in a conversion to Christianity, but we will read his text as a phenomenology of personal transformation generally –and indeed, of transformation that does not happen instantaneously but is born of many factors over a long period of time and requires significant personal labour. We will ask how interactions, role models, speeches, and books together made Augustine who he was, furthered his transformation, and even held him back from it. What do the complexity, the possibility, and the difficulty of Augustine’s transformation tell us about what it means to be human? What do they tell us about how to effect radical transformation in our own lives? Classes will be discussion based and students can expect to complete weekly writing assignments as well as a final reflection paper.