Bloodthirsty Pleasure: An Augustinian Theology of Antiblack Spectacles

Augustine of Hippo wrote extended reflections on spectacles throughout his career. Confessions and City of God offer timeless insights about how spectacles shape the public and arouse the passions of its spectators. This paper argues spectacles of antiblack violence arouse the passion of bloodlust and inebriate its spectators with bloodthirsty pleasure. This paper offers a close reading of gladiatorial spectacles in Book VI of Confessions. After parsing out the implications of Augustine’s analysis, the essay engages a Foucauldian analysis of spectacles of racial violence and the libidinal economies they produce. Then the paper considers the similarities between the gladiatorial spectacle as described by Augustine and the lynching spectacle as described by James Cone and W.E.B. Du Bois. Drawing on William Cavanaugh and Rowan Williams the paper concludes that spectacles of antiblack violence are idolatrous anti-liturgies which arouse passions like bloodlust and bloodthirsty pleasure.