Great Books Podcast
Ramsay – Campion Great Books Podcast – Series 1 – 2022
Interested in exploring the Great Books of the Western Canon but don’t know where to start? In need of guidance to help you through some of the most challenging passages within the texts so that you can appreciate and enjoy them?
To encourage more people to engage with these profound works, which bring the ancient world into conversation with our modern world, the Ramsay Centre is proud to launch the Ramsay-Campion Great Books Podcast.
Join us as we explore these great works. There are six episodes, three on Homer and one on each of the other authors. They’re great fun and available via this website and the Campion College website, or via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Buzzsprout.
To subscribe to this podcast, copy and paste the URL below into the podcast app of your choice.
Reference Books:
- Homer The Odyssey Trans. Emily Wilson. Norton. ISBN: 9780393356250
- Sophocles Antigone Trans. Richard Emil Braun. Oxford. ISBN: 9780195061673
- Thucydides On Justice, Power and Human Nature: Selections from the History of the Peloponnesian War Trans. Paul Woodruff. Hackett. ISBN:9780872201682
- Plato, The Symposium Penguin Classics. ISBN: 9780140449273
Podcasts:
Ramsay – Campion Great Books Podcast: Homer’s Odyssey Books 1-4
Dr Stephen McInerney, Dr Colin Dray, Dr Laurel Moffatt
Description:
Welcome to the 2022 Ramsay -Campion Great Books Podcast Series.
The series commences with the first of three conversations on Homer’s Odyssey – the story of a complicated man, a hero of the Trojan war, the ruler of Ithaca, and his attempts to get home.
In this first podcast Dr Stephen McInerney, Director of the Centre for the Study of the Western Tradition at Campion College is joined by Dr Colin Dray, Lecturer in Literature at Campion College together with Dr Laurel Moffatt, Senior Fellow with Anglican Deaconess Ministries.
In this conversation, the presenters will focus on Books 1-4 of the 24 books.
Ramsay – Campion Great Books Podcast: Homer’s Odyssey Books 5-12
Dr Stephen McInerney, Dr Colin Dray, Dr Laurel Moffatt
Description:
Welcome to the 2022 Ramsay -Campion Great Books Podcast Series.
The series on the Greeks continues with the second of three podcasts on Homer’s Odyssey. In the first episode the presenters discussed Books 1-4, sometimes known as the Telemachy. In this episode the discussion turns to Books 5-12, which focuses on the adventures of Odysseus prior to his return home to Ithaca.
In this second podcast Dr Stephen McInerney, Director of the Centre for the Study of the Western Tradition at Campion College is joined by Dr Colin Dray, Lecturer in Literature at Campion College together with Dr Laurel Moffatt, Senior Fellow with Anglican Deaconess Ministries.
Ramsay – Campion Great Books Podcast Series: Homer’s Odyssey Books 13-24
Dr Stephen McInerney, Dr Colin Dray, Dr Laurel Moffatt
Description:
Welcome to the 2022 Ramsay -Campion Great Books Podcast Series.
The series on the Greeks continues with the third and final podcast on Homer’s Odyssey. In the second podcast the presenters focused on Books 5-12. In this episode they turn their attention to the second half of the poem covered in Books 13-24.
In this third podcast Dr Stephen McInerney, Director of the Centre for the Study of the Western Tradition at Campion College is joined by Dr Colin Dray, Lecturer in Literature at Campion College together with Dr Laurel Moffatt, Senior Fellow with Anglican Deaconess Ministries.
Ramsay – Campion Great Books Podcast: Sophocles’ Antigone
Dr Stephen McInerney, Professor Simon Haines, Dr Laurel Moffatt
Description:
Welcome to the 2022 Ramsay-Campion Great Books Podcast Series.
In this podcast we turn our attention to the fifth century and to Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone, one of the Theban plays, which picks up the story of the family of Oedipus, the late King of Thebes, just after the civil war between his sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and opens with the two surviving members of Oedipus’s family, Antigone and Ismene. The play explores the conflict between these sisters, which centres on the larger conflict between individual conscience and the State, and a cluster of other animating tensions: between the old and the new, custom and innovation, and the differences between men and women – all of which are explored as part of the larger search for the meaning of human existence and the nature of human flourishing.
In this fourth podcast Dr Stephen McInerney, Director of the Centre for the Study of the Western Tradition at Campion College is joined by Professor Simon Haines, CEO of The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation and Dr Laurel Moffatt, Senior Fellow with Anglican Deaconess Ministries.
Ramsay – Campion Great Books Podcast: Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian Wars
Dr Stephen McInerney, Professor Simon Haines, Dr Jeremy Bell
Description:
Welcome to the 2022 Ramsay-Campion Great Books Podcast Series.
The series on the Greeks continues as we turn from Homeric epic and Sophoclean tragedy to Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, a work that not only helps establish the contours of a new literary genre, the History, but in doing so becomes one of the most influential works of political theory in the Western canon.
In this fifth podcast Dr Stephen McInerney is joined by Professor Simon Haines, CEO of the Ramsay Centre and Dr Jeremy Bell, Lecturer in History and Philosophy at Campion College, Sydney.
Ramsay – Campion Great Books Podcast: Plato’s Symposium
Dr Stephen McInerney, Professor Renée Köhler-Ryan, Dr Kishore Saval
Description:
Welcome to the 2022 Ramsay-Campion Great Books Podcast Series.
Our series on the Greeks concludes as we move from History to Philosophy in the form of one of Plato’s best known dialogues, Symposium, a remarkable exploration on a perennially important topic in the Western tradition – Love: its nature, meaning, purpose, and often confusing complexities.
In this sixth podcast Dr Stephen McInerney is joined by Professor Renée Köhler-Ryan, National Head of the School of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia, and Dr Kishore Saval, Senior Lecturer in the Western Civilisation Program at Australian Catholic University.
Panel:
Host: Dr Stephen McInerney
Stephen McInerney is Senior Lecturer in Literature and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Western Tradition at Campion College, Sydney. Part of the original faculty at Campion, he has taught across the entire literature curriculum offered by the College. From 2017-2021, he was a member of the Executive of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, first as Executive Officer and then Academic Director and Deputy CEO, and continues part-time at Ramsay as Academic Consultant. Representing the Ramsay Centre, he has been part of scholarship selection panels at the University of Queensland, the University of Wollongong and Australian Catholic University, and has also served on the Ramsay Postgraduate Scholarship selection panel. His published works include The Enclosure of An Open Mystery: Sacrament and Incarnation in the Writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins, David Jones and Les Murray (Peter Lang, 2012) and two volumes of poetry, In Your Absence (2002), chosen by Les Murray as a Times Literary Supplement ‘Book of the Year’, and The Wind Outside (2016).
Dr Jeremy Bell
Jeremy Bell completed a B.A., majoring in Jewish Civilization, Thought and Culture, and an M.Phil. in Philosophy, both at the University of Sydney, before commencing doctoral studies with the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago in 2007, supported by a General Sir John Monash Award. In 2015 he began teaching at Campion College, shortly before defending his dissertation on Elizabeth Anscombe’s philosophy of mind. He is currently Associate Dean at Campion College, where he teaches both philosophy and history. His publications include studies of Aquinas, Spinoza and Anscombe, as well as contributions to debates about euthanasia and higher education.
Dr Colin Dray
Dr Colin Dray is a Lecturer in Literature at Campion College of the Liberal Arts, and author of the novel Sign (Allen & Unwin, 2018). He has a PhD in English from the University of Sydney, where his thesis offered an interdisciplinary study in English Literature and Language Philosophy, and his research interests include the Australian poets Gwen Harwood and J.S. Harry. Previously he has taught Creative Writing Prose at the University of Wollongong. His writing has appeared in Meanjin, Ginninderra Press, Australian Literary Studies, and Antipodes.
Prof Simon Haines
Professor Simon Haines is a distinguished scholar, teacher and author, and passionate advocate for the humanities. Educated in Iraq, England and Australia, Simon took a BA at the Australian National University and a DPhil in English literature at the University of Oxford. He worked as a banker in London and then as a diplomat and analyst with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Office of National Assessments. He led the OECD Budget Committee as Chairman from 1985-1987. Simon then taught English Literature at the Australian National University from 1990 to 2008, where he also served as Head of the School of Humanities. In 2009 he was appointed Chair Professor and Head of English at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he also served as Director of the Research Centre for Human Values. He is a founding member of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities. In 2017 he was appointed CEO of the Ramsay Centre. Simon is the author or editor of five books including the prizewinning Reader in European Romanticism (Bloomsbury, 2010, 2nd paperback edition 2014) and Poetry and Philosophy from Homer to Rosseau (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) His most recent book is the edited volume Shakespeare and Value (Routledge, May 2018).
Prof Renée Köhler-Ryan
Professor Renée Köhler-Ryan is a philosopher by training and is the National Head of the School of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia. Her research interests are in Aesthetics, the thought of St. Augustine, and twentieth-century personalism. Her first philosophical love is Plato and her most recent monograph publication is Companions in the Between: Augustine, Desmond, and their Communities of Love (2020). She is preparing publications on the Catholic imagination in the thought of St. Augustine, and Edith Stein’s essays on Woman.
Dr Laurel Moffatt
Laurel Moffatt is a writer and researcher in Sydney. Her writing has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph, ABC Religion and Ethics and The Spectator. She is a Senior Fellow with Anglican Deaconess Ministries and the host of the Small Wonders podcast.
Dr P. Kishore Saval
Dr P. Kishore Saval is Senior Lecturer for the Bachelor of Arts (Western Civilisation) at ACU. He has a PhD from Harvard University and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Among other appointments, Dr Saval was an assistant professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University, where he taught many of the great tragic, lyric, epic, and prose works of European culture in the Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, and English traditions.
His principal areas of research include the relationship between literature and philosophy, and the multidisciplinary contexts of Renaissance literature.
Dr Saval has published widely on literature from Aeschylus to the present day. He is the author of two books, Reading Shakespeare through Philosophy (Routledge, 2014), and Shakespeare in Hate (Routledge, 2016). He has also published several articles, including ‘Shakespeare and Leibniz: Julius Caesar and the Baroque’ (Arcadia, 46.1), and ‘Hatred and Civilisation in the Oresteia’ (Social Research, February 2018). Among other projects, his current research studies the relationship between Shakespeare and metaphysics.