Augustine's Confessions: A history of emotions reading

This thesis is a history of emotions reading of the Confessions. Drawing on insights from history of emotions scholars, it argues that Augustine’s conversion was as much emotional as it was intellectual and spiritual. Across three chapters, it traces how Augustine learned to feel, unlearned inherited assumptions about emotion, and modeled a distinctly Christian affective life. Close readings of Books I–IX reveal his progression from youthful unrest, through Manichaean detachment, to Christian vulnerability, reframing emotion as a site of theological transformation. In this light, the Confessions emerges as a manual for emotional reformation in late-antique Christian practice.