Chesterton Institute Online Conference-"Chesterton Upside Down--the Australian Experience" - Seton Hall University
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Link to the transmission: Chesterton Upside Down - The Australian Experience.
About the event
G.K. Chesterton liked to say that the way to see the world the right way round is
to see it upside down. He had a topsy-turvy imagination, a love for turning things
inside out. It is fitting, then, that he should be so popular in Australia – a "down
under" place if ever there were one. Chesterton’s novels and short stories have enjoyed
widespread acclaim with the Australian reading public. His political and economic
ideas have resonated with several generations of Australian thinkers. His personality
seems almost Australian in its buoyancy and exuberance. Chesterton had "the quality
of sprawl" so memorably described by the Australian poet, Les Murray. He was from
Beaconsfield by way of Brisbane and Ballarat.
In this online conversation, Dermot Quinn and Karl Schmude will discuss Chesterton "Down Under." Why has Chesterton made such an impact on Australia? What lessons should we learn from this for other parts of the world? Who are the leading Chestertonian writers and thinkers in Australia today?
About the speakers
Dermot Quinn, D.Phil. is Professor of History at Seton Hall University and Editor
of The Chesterton Review. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and New College,
Oxford, where he was awarded a doctorate in 1986. He has written extensively on Chestertonian
themes, has authored three books The Irish in New Jersey: Four Centuries of American
Life (Rutgers University Press, 2004)(winner, New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance,
Non-fiction Book of the Year, 2005); Patronage and Piety: The Politics of English
Roman Catholicism, 1850-1900 (Stanford University Press/Macmillan, 1993) and Understanding
Northern Ireland (Baseline Books, Manchester, UK, 1993 and many articles and reviews
in the field of British and Irish history.
Karl Schmude is President of the Australian Chesterton Society, a member of the Editorial Board of The Chesterton Review, and author of the biographical booklet, G. K. Chesterton (Catholic Truth Society: London, 2008). A co-founder of Australia’s first liberal arts institution of higher education, Campion College, Sydney, which was established in 2006, he is a former University Librarian at the University of New England, Armidale NSW.
About the sponsors
The G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture is located at Seton Hall University,
South Orange, N.J. Founded in 1974 by Father Ian Boyd, C. S. B., its purpose is to
promote the thought of G. K. Chesterton and his circle and more broadly, to explore
the application of Chestertonian ideas in the contemporary world. The Institute’s
work consists of conferences, lecture series, research, and writing. The Chesterton
Review, founded in 1974, has been widely praised both for its scholarship and for
the quality of its writing. The journal was founded by Father Ian Boyd, C. S. B.,
and is edited by Dr. Dermot Quinn, includes a wide range of articles not only on Chesterton
himself, but on the issues close to his heart in the work of other writers and in
the modern world. It has devoted special issues to C. S. Lewis, George Bernanos, Hilaire
Belloc, Maurice Baring, Christopher Dawson, Cardinal Manning, the Modernist Crisis,
J. R. R. Tolkien, Fantasy Literature, and a Special Polish Issue. The Chesterton Review
also publishes one annual issue in Spanish and an annual supplement in Portuguese
and French. For information about the Institute or The Chesterton Review please contact
chestertoninstitute@shu.edu – website: www.shu.edu/chesterton.
Categories: Faith and Service, Nation and World
