In the third Ramsay Lecture for 2022, one of Australia’s leading public intellectuals and our most distinguished independent literary critical voice, Peter Craven, poses and answers the question – Classics and why we must keep them alive.In this lecture Peter Craven journeys back in time, taking us through centuries of great works, through various translations and adaptations, through famous dramatisations, and through the infusion of ancient cultures into each another.  In so doing, he discusses the classic works that have impacted him, and which he believes to be the best ever produced.  Peter also reveals the connectedness of great works to one another and shows how the classics serve as points of entry to our understanding of other cultures and world history in general.Provocatively, Mr Craven argues that it is through the classics we learn that “…the history of civilisation is at the same time, as Walter Benjamin reminded us, the history of barbarism: Athens executed Socrates and Rome executed Christ..” And that “…Renaissance England, Shakespeare’s England, was an axe-blade world, a world of religious persecution and an exorbitant abuse of power.”Mr Craven discusses the need to resist some unjustified cancelling of the classics, and to ensure that deserving modern works are passed onto future generations.“We need to be constantly aware that literature can be a difficult pleasure, something that was not forgotten in the wake of modernism.  We need to be our own library of Alexandria and resist the flames flickering all around us.”Please join us for this ‘tour de force’ lecture and conversation between Peter Craven and Ramsay Centre CEO Professor Simon Haines.

In the second Ramsay Lecture for 2022, Walkley Award winner and distinguished China commentator Rowan Callick OBE offers unique insight into the Chinese Communist Party (CPP) and argues that the Party’s actions are subsuming China’s great culture as we know it.  Drawing on some 20 years of reporting, Rowan Callick lists examples of manipulation of Chinese life by the CPP to ensure its own survival. He discusses how the CCP control over media and social media, national celebrations and events, education, and even printing presses has worked to suppress traditional elements of Chinese culture so that only Party-friendly elements remain. During his lecture, Rowan discusses the achievements of China’s ‘marvellous civilisation’ and its cultural treasures and laments that ‘an extraordinarily pervasive and ambitious CPP’ has seen these fade into memory as it creates its own ‘grim simulacrum of a civilisation’. Despite the CCP’s tight grip over Chinese society, he believes that the will and genius of the Chinese population will ultimately see their civilisation survive.  Please join us for this insightful lecture and discussion between Rowan Callick and Ramsay Centre CEO Professor Simon Haines.  

In the first Ramsay Lecture for 2022, world-famous historian, author and broadcaster Professor Bettany Hughes OBE, takes us on a journey piecing together the story of Venus and Aphrodite throughout the ages. In this exclusive lecture, the fourth in the series delivered by Professor Hughes for the Ramsay Centre, Bettany draws upon research from her 2019 book, Venus and Aphrodite: History of a Goddess, to demonstrate why Venus matters today and her enormous appeal as a pagan deity who survived the advent of Christianity and was even transposed into Marian imagery. Professor Hughes analyses the central role of Venus, whose gender-fluid representation as a goddess of desire, war and cities, encompassed a wide range of possibilities in human relations, reminding us of the powerful nature of love as an act of symbiosis. Through her archaeological revelations and philosophical deliberations, Bettany reveals Venus/Aphrodite as a persona who is as relevant now as she was in ancient Rome and Greece. Please join us on this incredible journey. 

What has been the impact of Christianity on the development of Western civilisation? Could it have been so profound that it is now hidden from view? Even in a secular West, are we ‘goldfish swimming in a Christian pond’? In our final Ramsay Lecture for 2021, Centre Academic Director and Deputy CEO Dr. Stephen McInerney interviews award-winning UK historian, biographer and broadcaster Tom Holland. Mr. Holland is author of the 2019 Sunday Times best-seller Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. In their discussion Mr Holland presses his case for the central place of Christianity in the formation of Western values, arguing ‘Christianity is the most enduring and influential legacy of the ancient world, (and) its emergence the single most transformative development in Western history. In this exclusive interview Dr McInerney and Mr Holland discuss: How Mr Holland’s interest in antiquity led him to explore the shift from the brutality of ancient times to a more compassionate society today; The crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the ‘myth’ which lies at the heart of the development of Western values; The changing symbolism of the cross and its relationship to concepts of power;  Christianity’s permeation in other ‘secular’ structures; and The influence of Christianity on modern concepts of love. Please join us for this wide-spanning conversation. 

In the eighth Ramsay Lecture for 2021, world-famous historian, author and broadcaster, Professor Bettany Hughes OBE, takes us back to Golden Age Athens, as seen through the eyes of Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher and arguably the true father of western thought. In her exclusive lecture Professor Hughes draws on her comprehensive research on Socrates, as he left no written record. Through archaeological discoveries and research into the accounts of people who lived alongside him, Bettany pieces together Socrates’ life experiences - his youth, his time as a soldier, his search for the ‘good life’ and his death, and how these all laid the foundation for his philosophy, still relevant and being taught across the world today. Please join us on this incredible journey. 

In this seventh Ramsay Lecture for 2021, Professor Gigi Foster joins Ramsay Centre CEO, Professor Simon Haines, in discussion on The Great Covid Panic:  What Happened, Why, and What To Do Next. 

In the sixth Ramsay Lecture for 2021, world-famous historian, author and broadcaster, Professor Bettany Hughes OBE, takes us on ‘dazzling historical journey through the many incarnations of one of the world’s greatest cities’ – Istanbul. In her lecture, Istanbul, Constantinople, Byzantium – the Queen of Cities, Professor Hughes draws upon her in-depth research, shares new archaeological discoveries, ancient stories and geographic insights to illuminate Istanbul’s past as the cradle of civilisation formerly known as both Constantinople and Byzantium.  Bettany discusses the various cultures, religions, and peoples that have inhabited and blended the city over time.  She examines the introduction of Christianity and the Ottoman take-over whilst delving deeply into the city’s proud history of asylum and its record on social justice.  Please join us on this journey through a city that is known as the gateway between the East and the West. 

In the fifth Ramsay Lecture for 2021, Ramsay Centre CEO Professor Simon Haines interviews Chris Uhlmann about Australia’s response to COVID-19, and what it reveals about our politics, Federation, media, and leadership and its possible long-term effect on our future generations.

In the fourth Ramsay Lecture for 2021, Ramsay Centre CEO Professor Simon Haines interviews Lord Daniel Hannan where they discuss and answer the question “The Last Straw:  has Covid-19 finally broken freedom’s back?”