CHRISTOPHER DAWSON CENTRE NINTH ANNUAL COLLOQUIUM: Authentic Humanism and the Crisis of Culture

The Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies is an independent, not-for-profit think tank, dedicated to promoting enhanced awareness of the riches of the Christian Intellectual and Cultural Tradition.  The Colloquium is a whole-day event concluding with a dinner.  The registration fee covers all papers, mornings and afternoon refreshments, lunch, and a two-course dinner (drinks not included)

Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) is considered to have been the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century.  He is principally known for his powerful defence of the vital role of the Christian religion as a central strand of Western culture, but he also insists -

‘It is true that Christianity is not bound up with any particular race or culture. It is neither of the East or of the West, but has a universal mission to the human race as a whole…’

We in the Dawson Centre believe that every civilisation is shaped by a religious impulse, something fundamental to and inseparable from human nature, and that civilisations wither when this impulse is smothered or suppressed.  In the twentieth century, and perhaps even more now, we have seen that nexus between Religion and Culture, between Faith and Reason, challenged by tyrannical forces of both the Right and the Left. 

Not only is the belief in God as our ultimate reality widely denied, but our confidence in objective truth, goodness and beauty has been dealt a near fatal blow by the soi-disantintellectual elites that dominate the educational high ground.  Our young people must be saved from this.

On Saturday 6 July the Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies will host its ninth annual colloquium in Hobart, Tasmania.   The Dawson Colloquium is a conversation, rather than a multi-stream conference.  There are no keynote speeches, as all are considered important to the flow of ideas, and speakers are encouraged to attend all papers.  

The Colloquium will be held again at the Italian Club, 77 Federal Street, North Hobart.  The after-dinner speaker this year will be Emeritus Professor Steven Schwartz AM FASSA, formerly Vice-Chancellor of three universities (Brunel, Murdoch and Macquarie) and currently Senior Fellow of the Centre for Independent Studies.