To conclude the series of events dedicated to the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death and on the occasion of Dantedì 2022, the Office of the Vice President of the Australian Catholic University and the Italian Cultural Institute are pleased to announce an event dedicated to this important commemoration, which was celebrated all over the world in 2021.
The Vice-Chancellor and President of the ACU, Professor Zlatko Skrbis, the Consul General of Italy, Andrea De Felip, and the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Sydney, Lillo Guarneri, will also be in attendance at the event.
The keynote address: Dante’s Divine Comedy: a medieval masterpiece and our modern search for meaning, will be given by Professor John Kinder, from the School of Humanities of the University of Western Australia. Following the keynote, there will be other presentations by staff and students of the Australian Catholic University.
Dante’s journey through Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise is an exploration of the human heart. He is searching for a way of making
sense of things – his own life, the world around him and the belief systems he has inherited. He asks the Big Questions and offers answers that provoke us out of our modern complacency. This talk will give an overview of Dante’s journey and show how his holistic vision of reality still speaks to us seven centuries later. At the centre of the Comedy, and the centre of his world-view, is love, the force that moves the sun and the other stars. We experience love as desire and the dignity of the human person is our ability to respond to love and to direct our desires, in total freedom.
Professor John Kinder is Emeritus Professor of Italian at the University of Western Australia. He has published widely on various aspects of the Italian language and dialects. His first encounter with Dante was as a young student in his native New Zealand and Dante has remained a travelling companion ever since. Professor Kinder is a Corresponding Fellow of the Accademia della Crusca (Italy’s premier language academy, founded in 1583).
The event will be held at:
Australian Catholic University, Ramsay Lounge, Caroline Chisholm House, Lvl. 11, 33 Berry Street, North Sydney
Light refreshments will be served.
Free entry. Booking essential.
RSVP by 18 March 2022: ovp@acu.edu.au