
All sessions take place in the Music Building, except where otherwise noted.
Wednesday, September 28
7:30pm Free Public Lecture, Northwest Building Auditorium
- Dr. Michael Ward | Planet Narnia: C.S. Lewis and the Seven Heavens
Thursday, September 29
8:45–9:15 Registration
9:15–9:30 Welcome + Opening Remarks
9:30–10:45 Session 1
Openers | Room 210 abstracts + bios
- Matthew Steem | G.K. Chesterton’s Defence of Leisure
- Katharine Bubel | The Beatific Vision and the Reenchantment of Nature in Lewis’s Till We Have Faces
10:45–11:00 Break
11:00–12:15 Keynote Address | Room 210
- Dr. Michael Ward | C.S. Lewis and the Arts
12:15–1:10 Lunch
1:15–2:25 Session 2
Talking Back | Room 210 abstracts + bios
- Christopher S. Morrissey | Why Philosophy Needs Literature: The ‘Pure Play of Musement’ of C.S. Peirce’s ‘Neglected Argument for the Reality of God’ in C.S. Lewis’s ‘Argument from Reason’
- Norm Klassen | Lewis, Milton, Creatureliness, and Literary Creation
Undergrad Session | Room 201 abstracts + bios
- Graham Boldt | The Crone Revisited: MacDonald’s Re-Invented Crone Figure
- Madison Evans | Viewing Social Media through Values Emphasized and Explored by the Inklings
- Leanne Witten | How Creativity Links Faith and Art in The Mind of the Maker and The Zeal of Thy House by Dorothy Sayers, and “Leaf by Niggle,” by J.R.R. Tolkien
2:25–2:45 Break
2:45–4:30 Session 3
Art for Good | Room 210 abstracts + bios
- Joy Steem | A Call to Arts: George MacDonald’s Philosophy on Creativity
- Laura Van Dyke | The “mere stress of glory”: Poetry and the Poet in Charles Williams’ Arthuriad
of Good + Evil | Room 201 abstracts + bios
- John P. Bowen | “Looking along” and “Looking at” as a Key to Understanding C.S. Lewis’s Evangelism
- Richard Angelo Bergen | “A Wrap of Horror”: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sub-creations of Evil
- Rejoin session in Rm. 210 for Kirstin Johnson’s presentation (below)
MacDonald + Culture | Room 210 abstracts + bios
- Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson | Literary Legacies, Contextual Art: Phantastes's Key of Cultural Challenge and Arthurian Reform
7:30-9:30 Play Reading (Freedom Hall, Robert N. Thompson Building)
- Ron Reed | “Tolkien” and the Playwright’s Process
Friday, September 30
9:00–10:50 Session 4
Personal Connections | Room 210 abstracts + bios
- Ron Dart | The Art of Autobiography: C.S. Lewis and Bede Griffiths: Proto-Inklings
- Paul J. Pastor | Kindred: Finding My Creative Path through C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams
- Laurel Gasque | Owen Barfield: Friend and Teacher
Lewis + Music | Room 201 abstracts + bios
- John MacInnis | The Importance of Music in C.S. Lewis’s Creative Life, Relationships, andWritings
- Elizabeth Abbate | Myth Descending to Earth: Intersections of Tippett’s Midsummer Marriage and Lewis’s That Hideous Strength
- Daryl Ritchot | “But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard”: Aslan, Pop Music and Educating the Moral Imagination
10:50–11:10 Break
11:10–12:15 Session 5
Face-Self | Room 210 abstracts + bios
- Rachel Telian | C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces: A Theological Exploration through the Visual Metabolization of Texts
- Andrew TJ Kaethler | The Naked Self? C.S. Lewis and Human Identity
Love + Gender | Room 201 abstracts + bios
- Joshua Randhawa | Is There Such a Thing as ‘Too Much Love’?: C.S. Lewis on Love’s Need for Will and Order
- Sara L. Pearson | Charlotte Brontë in Narnia?: Intertextuality and Gender in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia
12:15–1:10 Lunch
1:10–3:00 Session 6
Meanings | Room 210 abstracts + bios
- Monika Hilder | ‘The Packed Reality of Heaven’: C.S. Lewis’s Imaginative Re-education of the Modern Pilgrim
- Justin A. Bailey | Poetic Participation: Owen Barfield, Poetic Diction and the Rediscovery of Meaning
- Barbara Bjelland | Portals to Another World: The Chronicles of Narnia and the Sacrament of Communion
Adaptations | Room 201 abstracts + bios
- Aaron Frede | Reader Reception and Interpretation in the Film Adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien's The Hobbit
- Jeff Tirrell | Staging The Great Divorce: Artistic Imagination as an Interpretive and Communicative Theatrical Lens for Understanding C.S. Lewis
- Kevin Schut | Digital Inklings: Can the Christian Vision of Tolkien and Lewis Fit in a Video Game?
3:00–3:20 Break
3:20–4:00 Session 7
And Music at the Close | Room 210 abstracts + bios
- Richard G. Leonberger | Taking Swann's Road to Middle-Earth: The Myths, Music, and Words of Donald Swann and J.R.R. Tolkien
- Richard G. Leonberger (voice) and John MacInnis (piano)