Nalin Ranasinghe's Odyssey

Session Submission Type: Virtual Roundtable

Session Description

Shortly before his untimely death, Nalin Ranasinghe had completed the manuscript of a study of Homer’s Odyssey, The Confessions of Odysseus (St Augustine’s Press, forthcoming). It was intended to complement the “reappraisal of the Platonic project” that he had undertaken in a trilogy of previous books. Taken together, these books -- The Soul of Socrates (Cornell, 2000), Socrates and the Underworld (St Augustine’s Press, 2009), and Socrates and the Gods (St Augustine’s Press, 2012) – study the mythopoetic form and neglected erotic dimension of Plato’s dialogues “to resurrect meaning that is only expressible through myth.” The story they tell is of Plato’s “Pauline vision,” a story in which Plato’s new hero Socrates “overturns Homeric religion in a way that subtly but definitely establishes the philosophical basis of Christian Revelation.” Ranasinghe’s work is in the Christian Humanist tradition -- not in its mainstream, but rather in the “alternative” tradition, “best typified by Erasmus and Shakespeare, but originating in the confessional dimension of Homer’s Odyssey.” This panel will take the occasion of the posthumous publication of The Confessions of Odysseus to discuss the works and celebrate the life of our dear friend and colleague, Nalin Ranasinghe.

Sub Unit

• Related Groups / Eric Voeglin Society

Chair

• Zdravko Planinc McMaster University

Presenters

• Predrag Cicovacki College of the Holy Cross

• Gwenda-lin Kaur Grewal The New School for Social Research

• Michelle M. Kundmueller Old Dominion University

• Bernat Torres Morales Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona