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53. Confessions.
I confess to you, Lord, that I still do not know what time is. Yet I confess
too that I do know that I am saying this in time, that I have been talking
about time for a long time, and that this long time would not be a long time
if it were not for the fact that time has been passing all the while. How
can I know this, when I do not know what time is? Is it that I do know what
time is, but do not know how to put what I know into words? I am in a sorry
state, for I do not even know what I do not know.
Our cluster on Time begins with Augustine’s Confessions , one of the most
widely read books of of the most widely read books of late antiquity, written
in the last years of the Roman Empire. On the one hand, the book is
autobiographical, describing (sometimes in very personal detail) Augustine’s
childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, culminating in his conversion and
commitment to Christianity in his early thirties. On the other hand,
especially in its less often read final chapters, the book is a philosophical
and theological exploration of what allows a person to change over time — and,
in particular, a meditation on the nature of time itself. Suzanne and Chris
explore Augustine’s fraught relationships to his friends and family, and they
begin to unpack the ways time structures and informs the book.
Show Notes.
Augustine: Confessions.
[Bookshop.] [We’re using the
classic translation by R.S. Pine-Coffin, but many translations are available.]
Other books by Augustine: City of God; Literal
Commentary on Genesis; De
Magistro [The Teacher].
Manichaeism.
Our episodes on the Inferno and
Paradise Lost.
Brian Stock: Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics
of Interpretation.
Catherine Conybeare picks Five Books about
Augustine.
The Cloisters.
Birgit Brander Rasmussen: Queequeg's Coffin: Indigenous Literacies and Early
American Literature.
Samuel R. Delany: Tales of Nevèrÿon.
Ayelet Tsabari, Eufemia Fantetti, and Leonarda Carranza: Tongues: On Longing
and Belonging through Language.
Next: W.G. Sebald: The Rings of Saturn.
[Bookshop.]
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.
View all episodes
By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma
4.8
3030 ratings
I confess to you, Lord, that I still do not know what time is. Yet I confess
too that I do know that I am saying this in time, that I have been talking
about time for a long time, and that this long time would not be a long time
if it were not for the fact that time has been passing all the while. How
can I know this, when I do not know what time is? Is it that I do know what
time is, but do not know how to put what I know into words? I am in a sorry
state, for I do not even know what I do not know.
Our cluster on Time begins with Augustine’s Confessions , one of the most
widely read books of of the most widely read books of late antiquity, written
in the last years of the Roman Empire. On the one hand, the book is
autobiographical, describing (sometimes in very personal detail) Augustine’s
childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, culminating in his conversion and
commitment to Christianity in his early thirties. On the other hand,
especially in its less often read final chapters, the book is a philosophical
and theological exploration of what allows a person to change over time — and,
in particular, a meditation on the nature of time itself. Suzanne and Chris
explore Augustine’s fraught relationships to his friends and family, and they
begin to unpack the ways time structures and informs the book.
Show Notes.
Augustine: Confessions.
[Bookshop.] [We’re using the
classic translation by R.S. Pine-Coffin, but many translations are available.]
Other books by Augustine: City of God; Literal
Commentary on Genesis; De
Magistro [The Teacher].
Manichaeism.
Our episodes on the Inferno and
Paradise Lost.
Brian Stock: Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics
of Interpretation.
Catherine Conybeare picks Five Books about
Augustine.
The Cloisters.
Birgit Brander Rasmussen: Queequeg's Coffin: Indigenous Literacies and Early
American Literature.
Samuel R. Delany: Tales of Nevèrÿon.
Ayelet Tsabari, Eufemia Fantetti, and Leonarda Carranza: Tongues: On Longing
and Belonging through Language.
Next: W.G. Sebald: The Rings of Saturn.
[Bookshop.]
Support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.
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