Kaufman presents a rich, dense amount of quality content and context. I found new illuminating insights, quotations, and cross-references on most pages.

Reading Religion

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

This volume is a great addition to the series, Reading Augustine edited by Miles Hollingworth ... The genius of this book lies in its invitational style. It forces nothing on Augustine, and does not force Augustine on anyone.

Augustiniana