Welcome

‘DWARVES ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS…’

‘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…’

– Christopher Dawson

 ‘Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarves sitting on the shoulders of giants, for we see more and farther than they, not by the sharpness of our own eyesight or the loftiness of our bodies, but because we are raised up and lifted on high by their colossal greatness.’                                          

– John of Salisbury

The Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies
Contact Details

DIRECTOR:  Dr David Daintree AM

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Ms Naomi Spinks

ABN: 24 097 986 470

Head Office:  35 Tower Road, New Town, Tasmania 7008, Australia

Postal Address:  PO Box 68, Colebrook, Tasmania 7027, Australia
Telephone:  +61 (0)408 87 94 94
Email:  director@dawsoncentre.org

About our logo

The Centre’s device is a candle, signifying Reason, set within the Cross, the symbol of Faith.  The open book contains the motto of Oxford University – Dawson’s alma mater – Deus Illuminatio mea, the opening words of Psalm 27 (‘the Lord is my Light and my Salvation; whom then should I fear?’)

About the CDC

Following his installation as Archbishop of Hobart on 17 September 2013 the Most Reverend Julian Porteous signaled a determination to advance the Catholic Intellectual Tradition within the Archdiocese and beyond.  He took steps to establish the Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies, in honour of a man who is considered to have been the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century.

Who was Christopher Dawson?

‘Secularization of culture is seen in its most striking form in the Communist State, where alone as yet the elimination of religion has been carried to its logical conclusion.  Nevertheless, the same tendency exists elsewhere; in fact, it permeates the whole outlook of modern civilization.  The average man lives more totally in the State than in the past, and even when he is not consciously hostile to religion, he no longer conceives it as a vital activity which must hold its central place in human life and society.’

Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) was brought up an Anglican, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1914, and is principally known for his powerful defence of the vital role of the Christian religion as a major strand of Western culture.  The aim of the Centre named after him is ‘to promote awareness of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and Cultural Heritage as essential components of human civilization’.