Image: Penelope and Ulysses leaving Sparta to return to Ithaca, Jean-Jacques François Le Barbier dit Le Barbier l’Aîné (1738-1826).

Campion College’s Centre for the Study of the Western Tradition (CSWT) is delighted to partner with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation on the production of a new Great Books podcast series, hosted by CSWT Director Dr Stephen McInerney.

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 McInerney 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.

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

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 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.

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.