Overview

Many progressives have found passages in Augustine’s work that suggest he entertained hopes for meaningful political melioration in his time. They also propose that his “political theology” could be an especially valuable resource for “an ethics of democratic citizenship” or for “hopeful citizenship” in our times. Peter Kaufman argues that Augustine’s “political theology” offers a compelling, radical alternative to progressive politics. He chronicles Augustine’s experiments with alternative polities, and pairs Augustine’s criticisms of political culture with those of Giorgio Agamben and Hannah Arendt. This book argues that the perspectives of pilgrims (Augustine), refugees (Agamben), and pariahs (Arendt) are better staging areas than the perspectives and virtues associated with citizenship—and better for activists interested in genuine political innovation rather than renovation. Kaufman revises the political legacy of Augustine, aiming to influence interdisciplinary conversations among scholars of late antiquity and twenty-first century political theorists, ethicists, and practitioners.

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9780567682772

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Reviews

Peter Kaufman is one of our most venerable interpreters of Augustine's political thought. In this creative volume, he continues his quarrel with Augustine's optimists through a series of illuminating and provocative forays into Agamben and Arendt. Kaufman's communitarian alternative may be the antidote we need for these cynical and lonely times. * Gregory W. Lee, Associate Professor of Theology and Urban Studies, Wheaton College, USA * In a creative juxtaposition that leverages Augustine's political theology for both modern and postmodern critiques of citizenship and sovereignty, Kaufman has managed to locate in the early Christian monastic movement some paradigms of countercultural identity formation in the figure of the practicing Christian who lives as a pilgrim, exile, and other. Augustine is here interpreted as a theologian whose early, short-lived fantasy of an alternative community at Cassiacum left an indelible imprint on his imagination, even as he became a central figure in the shaping and definition of what Christian conformity should look like. This is a study that will challenge many assumptions of patristic scholars, one that recuperates Augustine as a thinker who can be placed in a critical tradition of resistance and non-conformity. * W. Scott Blanchard, Professor of English, Misericordia University, USA *

Author Information

Peter Iver Kaufman is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA, and holds the George Matthews and Virginia Brinkley Modlin Chair in Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, USA.

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