Augustine and his Critics gathers the responses of twelve specialists in Augustine to recent, and sometimes ancient, criticisms of his thought covering a range of issues from personal and religious freedom, the self and God, human sexuality, gender and the body, to spirituality, asceticism, cultural studies and politics. Augustine is frequently characterised today as 'pessimistic', and he is charged with the responsibility of fostering a certain Christian malaise, the legacy of which is said to have carried over into the formation of western subjectivity, authoritarianism, theological dogmatism and a preoccupation with guilt in the realm of human sexuality.