Teaching Augustine’s Confessions in the Context of Mercer’s Great Books Program

Journal Title: Religions - Year 2015, Vol 6, Issue 1

Abstract

Students in Mercer University’s Great Books program read Augustine’s Confessions in the third semester of a seven-semester sequence. Their previous reading of Greek and Roman epics and philosophical treatises as well as Biblical material equips them with a solid foundation for reading and discussing Augustine. This essay reflects on that preparation and models ways that instructors can use opening discussion questions related to those earlier readings to guide students into substantive reflection on the Confessions.

Authors and Affiliations

Bryan J. Whitfield

Keywords

Related Articles

Psychiatry, a Secular Discipline in a Postsecular World? A Review

Postsecular theory is developing in academic circles, including the psychiatric field. By asking what the postsecular perspective might imply for the secular discipline of psychiatry, the aim of this study was to exami...

Augustine and Autobiography: Confessions as a Roadmap for Self-Reflection

In this article, I explore a pedagogical strategy for teaching Augustine’s Confessions to undergraduate students, which involves a final essay assignment. In the assignment, students compose their own “confessions” at...

Disused Religious Space: Youth Participation in Built Heritage Regeneration

The rights of young people to participate in decision-making processes that affect their lives has been encouraged since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Since then, policy-makers and pl...

A Contribution to Comparative Theology: Probing the Depth of Islamic Thought

Muslim theologians, as much as ordinary Muslims, will immediately agree with the characterization of God as all compassionate. However, it remains rather opaque how God’s compassion can be fully explained in terms of c...

Reframing Catholic Theological Ethics from a Scotistic Perspective

The article engages with Joseph Selling’s most recent publication Reframing Catholic Theological Ethics in which he invites theological ethicists to re-think the post-Tridentine development of theological ethics by not...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP25415
  • DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel6010107
  • Views 357
  • Downloads 8

How To Cite

Bryan J. Whitfield (2015). Teaching Augustine’s Confessions in the Context of Mercer’s Great Books Program. Religions, 6(1), -. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-25415