Public Lecture | The Message That Burned Literary Strategies in Augustine’s Confessions
In communication and media studies, we seek for the strategies to convey our messages efficiently, but modern readers often find it difficult to relate to the texts of the past due to the historical distance. The efficient message convinces and ultimately converts the target audience to a certain point of view or set of beliefs. The problem of conversion – radical change in one’s religious and philosophical beliefs – is best represented in Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ but other examples of are pertinent such as Alcibiades’ description of the effects Socrates had on his contemporaries. In the talk, Andrey explored through the individual experience of Augustine’s conversion, he develops a message to convert others to his faith.
About the Speaker
Andrey Menshikov is currently a research fellow at UCA. He was previously the Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Head of the Center for Comparative Studies of Toleration and Recognition at Ural Federal University. His primary research interests comprise intellectual history, religion in public space and theory of modernity.
The public lecture series is organised within the framework of School of Arts and Sciences, University of Central Asia Research Cluster: Modernity in Central Asia: Identity, Society, Environment.
