The Undiscovered C.S. Lewis Conference Schedule

2026 Conference Schedule

Thursday, Sept. 24

Registration
Starts at noon
Various Locations

From noon – 2 p.m., registration will take place at Edwards Stevens Center.

After 2 p.m., registration will take place in Canyon Commons.

Welcome
2 – 2:45 p.m.
  • Dr. Jason Lepojärvi, Director’s Welcome
  • Dr. Robin Baker, President’s Welcome
  • Dr. Bruce Johnson, “The New Horizon”
Keynote Speaker
2:45 – 4 p.m.
Dr. Leslie Baynes, “The Trouble with the Trilemma: Lewis’s ‘Liar, Lunatic, or Lord’ Argument”
Break
4 – 4:15 p.m.
Concurrent Paper Sessions #1
4:15 – 5:45 p.m.

1A: Rhetoric and Style

Edwards-Holman Science Center - 102

  • “Dip, Write, Repeat: Escaping to C.S. Lewis's Analog World,” Dr. Kent Kersey
  • “C.S. Lewis’s Realistic Approach to Narrative Rhetorical Criticism’s Fantastic Problems,” Dave Terpstra
  • “Imaginative and Pictorial Preaching: Lewis’s ‘Weight of Glory’,” Dr. Greg Anderson

Chair: Dr. Gary Tandy


1B: The Cosmic Trilogy: Past and Present

Edwards-Holman Science Center - 125

  • “‘Since our Beloved Became a Man’: The Narrative Significance of the Incarnation in Perelandra,” Mr. Simon Wipf
  • “Bergson vs. Boethius on Perelandra: Reassessing Sanford Schwartz,” Dr. Brian Roden
  • “That Hideous Strength from the Inside,” Dr. Scot Headley

Chair: Mrs. Madeleine Teel


1C: The Making of Lewis

Edward Stevens Center - 109

  • “C.S. Lewis’s Undiscovered Boyhood Bookshelf,” Dr. Joyce McPherson
  • “Lewis, Being, and The Whole,” Mrs. Erin Seidel
  • “‘That Was New’: Speculations on the Content of C.S. Lewis's ‘Hegemony of Moral Values’,” Dr. Matthew Jordan

Chair: Dr. Brenton Dickieson


1D: All Creatures Great and Cosmic

Edward Stevens Center - 207

  • “Creatures, Cousins, and Kings: An Exploration of Lewis's Theology of Animals,” Mr. Isaac Owen
  • “Angelic Aliens and Marvelous Monsters: Reimagining of Science Fiction Tropes in the Cosmic Trilogy,” Dr. Nathan Fayard

Chair: Mr. Josiah Peterson


1E: Desire

Edward Stevens Center - 208

  • “C.S. Lewis and the Kingdom of God,” Dr. Clayton Carver
  • “Desire and Conscience in A.E. Taylor’s The Faith of a Moralist,” Prof. Aaron Rizzieri
  • “Lewis and Hegel on Sehnsucht and the Bad Infinite,” Dr. Brian Gregor

Chair: Dr. Bruce Johnson


1F: Pedagogy and Education

Edward Stevens Center - 209

  • “Pedagogy of the Chest: Reviving the Ordo Amoris in the Classroom,” Mr. Josh Withrow
  • “Lewis on Pre-University Education: Unimaginative, Inconsistent, or Reasoned?,” Dr. Carrie Birmingham and Janice Park
  • “The A.I.bolition of Man: Can C.S. Lewis Help Save My Comp 1 Class in the Age of Digital Necromancy?,” Dr. Benjamin Utter

Chair: Dr. Traver Carlson

Dinner
5:45 – 7:30 p.m.
Keynote Speaker
7:30 – 8:45 p.m.

John Garth, “Undiscovered J.R.R. Tolkien”

Closing Remarks
8:45 – 9 p.m.

Friday, Sept. 25

Breakfast
7 – 8:30 a.m.
Centering
8:30 – 9 a.m.
Keynote Speaker
9 – 9:50 a.m.

Dr. Alister McGrath (remotely), “When Science Becomes Apologetics: Lewis’s Most Overlooked Strategy”

Panel Response
9:50 – 10:15 a.m.
Break
10:15 – 10:30 a.m.
Workshops
10:30 – 11:15 a.m.

Workshop 1

University Chapel

"Inklings as Reliable Guides for Bible," Dr. Bruce Johnson

Workshop 2

Canyon Commons

“Translating Fellowship to Comics: Visualizing the Story of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien,” Dr. John Hendrix

Lunch
11:15 – 12:30 p.m.
Plenary
12:30 – 1:15 p.m.

“Hearing C.S. Lewis’s Wartime Broadcast to Iceland: ‘The Norse Spirit in English Literature’,” Prof Harry Lee Poe

Break
1:15 – 1:30 p.m.
Concurrent Paper Sessions #2
1:30 – 3 p.m.

2A: Lewis's Influences

Canyon Commons

  • “Blue and Amber Castles: How Novalis is Reborn in the Works of L.M. Montgomery and C.S. Lewis,” Ms. Avery-Claire Galloway
  • “‘The Biggest Shaking Up’: Jacob Boehme in the Works of C.S. Lewis,” Mr. Scott Brown
  • “Samuel Johnson and C.S. Lewis: Admiration, Affinity, and Influence,” Dr. Gary Tandy

Chair: Dr. Joseph Ricke


2B: Orual and Psyche

Hoover Academic Building - 105

  • “‘You Also Shall Be Psyche’: New Aspects of C.S. Lewis’s Classical Engagement in Till We Have Faces,” Mr. Michael Frost
  • “The Virginal and the Voluptuous: Lunar Imagery in Till We Have Faces,” Mrs. Olivia Hofer Hancock
  • “Preparing the Bride: Psyche, Orual, and the Mikvah,” Mrs. Christine Norvell

Chair: The Rev'd Brian McGreevy


2C: Philosophy of Mind

Roberts Center - 130

  • “C.S. Lewis and Religious Epistemology,” Mr. Josiah Peterson
  • “Undiscovered C.S. Lewis in Twentieth-Century Epistemology and Philosophy of Science,” Dr. Piotr Bylica
  • “Lewis’s Prescience in Philosophy of Mind,” Dr. Jim Slagle

Chair: Dr. Matthew Jordan


2D: Lewis and Dante

Murdock Library Basement - 025

  • “Dante’s Ulysses and the Un-man,” Mr. Anthony Klein
  • “Nose to the Sunrise: Dantean Spirituality in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” Dr. Michael Faletra
  • “No, It's not all in Plato: an Exploration of New Narnia through a Dantean Lens,” Mr. Jonathan Selstad

Chair: Dr. Lindsey Scholl


2E: Fellow Fantasists

Art & Cinematic Arts Building - 105

  • “The Shire and the Hundred Acre Wood: Milne and Tolkien’s Post-War Pastoralism,” Miss Grace Jenott
  • “Two Oxford Fantasists: Exploring the Connections between C.S. Lewis and Elizabeth Goudge,” Mr. Roy Wallen
  • “Another Path Past Watchful Dragons: Virtue in Stephen R. Lawhead’s The Song of Albion,” Mrs. Monique Stam

Chair: Prof Harry Lee Poe

Break
3 – 3:15 p.m.
Concurrent Paper Sessions #3
3:15 – 4:45 p.m.

3A: Literary Imagination

Art & Cinematic Arts Building - 105

  • “Narrow Escapes and Unexpected Recoveries: Divine Grace in English Literature in the Sixteenth Century,” Prof. Clark Moreland
  • “C.S. Lewis, the Modern Novel, and the Problem of Realism,” Dr. Ryan Stark
  • “Lewis the Blurbologist: A Reply to Justin Keena on Screwtape Letters,” Mr. William O'Flaherty

Chair: Dr. Jeffrey Barbeau


3B: Systematic Theology

Edwards-Holman Science Center - 102

  • “Exitus et Reditus: A Master Motif in C.S. Lewis,” Mr. Eric Anderson
  • “Tolkien and the Turing Test: What Does It Mean To Be Human?,” Mr. Jonathan Miller
  • “Reconsidering Lewis’s Categories of ‘Thick’ and ‘Clear’ Religion,” Dr. Terry Cokenour

Chair: Dr. Josh Herring


3C: Problem of Pain and Pleasure

Edwards-Holman Science Center - 125

  • “C.S. Lewis Beyond Mere Theodicy,” Mr. Alexander Roth
  • The Great Divorce and the Problem of Hell,” Dr. Kristine Wolberg
  • “On the Book C.S. Lewis Never Wrote: The Problem of Pleasure,” Dr. William Johnston

Chair: Dr. Jahdiel Perez


3D: Christian Stewardship

Edward Stevens Center - 207

  • “The Ecotheology of Till We Have Faces,” Mrs. Madeleine Teel
  • “Mountains of Tin: Lewis and Sayers on Environmental Stewardship,” Dr. Lindsey Scholl
  • “Of Priests and Beasts: Lewis on a Sacramental World,” Dr. Michael Muth

Chair: Dr. Greg Anderson


3E: Ethics of War

Edward Stevens Center - 208

  • “C.S. Lewis and the Ethics of War,” Dr. James Chappel
  • “Hate With a Perfect Hatred,” Mr. Brody Stewart
  • “A Lewis Stay with the YMCA: Difficulties in Reconstructing the Forgotten Front Campaign,” Dr. Bruce Johnson

Chair: Casey LaMar

Break
4:45 – 5 p.m.
Keynote Speaker
5 – 6:15 p.m.

Dr. Landon Loftin, “Inklings on Abortion: Barfield vs. Lewis?”

Dinner
6:15 – 8 p.m.
J.R.R. Tolkien's “Leaf by Niggle”
8 – 9:30 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 26

Breakfast
7 – 8:30 a.m.
Centering
8:30 – 9 a.m.
Keynote Speaker
9 – 10:15 a.m.

Dr. Anne-Frédérique Mochel-Caballero, “C.S. Lewis and France: The Untold Story”

Break
10:15 – 10:30 a.m.
Workshops
10:30 – 11:15 a.m.

Workshop 3

Canyon Commons

“Classical Literature in Narnia,” Dr. Austin Freeman

Workshop 4

Hoover Academic Building - 105

“New Digital Tools for Lewis Scholars,” Justin Keena

Lunch
11:15 – 12:30 p.m.
Concurrent Paper Sessions #4
12:30 – 2 p.m.

4A: Narnia and Middle-earth

Edwards-Holman Science Center - 102

  • “‘The Mythical Tollewis’: Tolkien and Lewis on Myth and Allegory,” Mr. Jonathan Rolfe
  • “Unlikely Father Figures in Narnia and Middle-earth,” Dr. Joel Hawbaker
  • “‘Not Wholly Vain’: A Tolkienian Reading of Lewis’s Narniad,” Mr. Daniel Hubin

Chair: John Garth


4B: Faith in Conversation

Edwards-Holman Science Center - 125

  • “Unlikely Traveling Companions: C.S. Lewis and Jonathan Edwards,” Dr. Christian Cuthbert
  • “The Wound That Orients: Language, Desire, and the Split Subject in C.S. Lewis and Jacques Lacan,” Dr. Paul Hoard
  • “C.S. Lewis and Rudolf Bultmann – Theologians at Odds?,” Dr. John Nelson

Chair: Dr. Leslie Baynes


4C: Beyond Mrs. Lewis

Edward Stevens Center - 109

  • “Bloodstained Banners and Weeping Bays: An Undiscovered Influence on Joy Davidman’s Second Novel,” Mr. Gabriel Connor Salter
  • “Joy Davidman’s French Connection,” Prof. Don King
  • “The Problem of Joy: A Reexamination of C.S. Lewis's Wife In the Context of #MeToo,” Kathleen Coffin

Chair: Dr. Anne-Frédérique Mochel-Caballero


4D: Patristics and Metaphysics

Edward Stevens Center - 207

  • “Augustinian Illumination and C.S. Lewis’s Theory of Imagination,” Mr. Colton Kirby
  • “To Nothing They Shall Return: The Athanasian Influence on Lewis’ Metaphysics,” Mr. Austin Story
  • “From Marginalia to Message: C.S. Lewis’s Sermons and Athanasius’s Understanding of the Incarnation,” Prof. Andy Shurson

Chair: Dr. Landon Loftin


4E: Inklings and Women

Edward Stevens Center - 208

  • “Discovering Comus in the Wardrobe: Lewis’s Miltonic Feminine Spiritual Heroism in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” Mr. Mark-Elliot Finley
  • “The Bachelor, the Nun and the Feminine Genius: C.S. Lewis's and Edith Stein's Interwar Writings on Women,” Mrs. Megan Mueller
  • “Is Mary Magdalene Human? Dorothy Sayers as Biblical Interpreter of Jesus's Female Friends,” Dr. Jennifer McNutt

Chair: Dr. Sarah O'Dell


4F: Cinema+

Edward Stevens Center - 209

  • “The ‘Gentle Slope’ in Black and White: C.S. Lewis, Film Noir, and the Moral Crisis of the 1940s,” Dr. Bryan Mead
  • “From Baker Street to Narnia,” Mr. J. Wesley Mullins
  • Screwtape, The Movie,” Dr. Joseph Ricke

Chair: Dr. Michael Ward

Break
2 – 2:15 p.m.
Concurrent Paper Sessions #5
2:15 – 3:45 p.m.

5A: Poetry and Poetics

Edwards-Holman Science Center - 102

  • “What’s in a Name? Jadis, Narnia, and Francois Villon,” The Rev'd Brian McGreevy
  • “Die and Come to Life: Matthew Arnold’s Influence on C.S. Lewis’ Conversion,” Dr. Jason Staples
  • “On Failing to Finish Bleheris,” Dr. Brenton Dickieson

Chair: Prof. Don King


5B: Till We Have Faces: Memory and Mapping

Edwards-Holman Science Center - 125

  • “Deserts into Oases: Baptized Memory in C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces,” Miss Megan Rials
  • “An Incarnational Cartography: Mapping Lewis’s Till We Have Faces,” Dr. Laura Van Dyke and Dr. Katharine Bubel
  • “‘You Flashed and You Shone’: Echoes of Confessions Book X in Till We Have Faces,” Mr. Michael Oppizzi

Chair: Dr. Michael Christensen


5C: Love and Moral Psychology

Edward Stevens Center - 109

  • “Love vs. Trauma: The Making of an Icon,” Dr. Kali Miller
  • “‘The First Rule in a Holy Game’: Lewis and Love in Contemporary Philosophy,” Mr. Aaron Milkie
  • “Beyond Good and Evil? C.S. Lewis and Nietzsche on Moral Psychology,” Dr. Jahdiel Perez

Chair: Dr. Joyce McPherson


5D: History and Political Thought

Edward Stevens Center - 207

  • “C.S. Lewis as Philosopher of History in Relation to Herbert Butterfield,” Mr. Jack Nicholson
  • “C.S. Lewis, Quentin Skinner, and the Cambridge School of Intellectual History,” Mr. Cody Mitchell
  • “Medicine, Not Food: C.S. Lewis on the Purpose and Perils of Democracy,” Dr. Todd Wilson

Chair: Dr. Jennifer Woodruff Tait


5E: Re-enchantment

Edward Stevens Center - 208

  • “Bicycles, Shadows, and The Music of The Spheres: Philosophical Poetics of Re-Enchantment in Lewis and MacDonald,” Mr. Jonathan Mueller
  • “The Proper Pleasure of Ritual: The Language of Liturgy in the Aesthetics of Lewis and His Contemporaries,” Mr. Sean Doyle
  • “Recovery of Sight as a Task of Re-enchantment: Lewis in Conversation with Josef Pieper,” Lauren Revay

Chair: Dr. Stephanie Midori Komashin


5F: Inklings and Friends

Edward Stevens Center - 209

  • “New Light on C.S. Lewis and J.A.W. Bennett,” Dr. Joel Heck
  • “Memoirs of a Medical Inkling,” Dr. Sarah O'Dell
  • “A Circle of Friends: C.S. Lewis, Nicolas Zernov, and the Ecumenical Movement in Oxford 1947-1963,” Dr. Dwain Tissell

Chair: Mr. Gabriel Connor Salter

Break
3:45 – 4 p.m.
New Books Roundtable
4 – 4:45 p.m.

Hosted by Dr. Joseph Ricke (Refreshments provided)

Break
4:45 – 5 p.m.
Keynote Speaker
5 – 6:15 p.m.

Dr. Michael Ward, “Cursèd fate that gave thee to the Moore? Mrs. Moore in Lewis’s Life and Works”

Dinner
6:15 – 8 p.m.
“The Fire and the Rose: T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis in Conversation”
8 – 9:30 p.m.
Amphitheater

Sunday, Sept. 27

Breakfast
7 – 9 a.m.
Mass Option
7 – 8 a.m.
Devotional Option
8 – 9 a.m.
Break
9 – 9:15 a.m.
Concurrent Paper Sessions #6
9:15 – 10:45 a.m.

6A: Further Studies in Narnia

Edwards-Holman Science Center - 102

  • “Susan and Lasaraleen as Heroes,” Dr. Stephanie Midori Komashin
  • “‘The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs’: Race Anxiety in the Caspian Era,” Ms. Heidi Turner
  • “What’s the Use of Eustace? The Redemption of Usefulness in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” Dr. Robert Garcia

Chair: Gary Tandy


6B: Apologetics

Edwards-Holman Science Center - 125

  • “Stealing Past the Watchful Dragons: Imaginative Subversion and Spiritual Formation in C.S. Lewis,” Dr. Jeff Tacklind
  • “The Argument from Morality and Phenomenology,” Dr. Regan Reitsma
  • The Abolition of Man Versus The Green Book: A New Verdict,” Dr. Gregory Bassham

Chair: Dr. Austin Freeman


6C: Lewis and Barfield

Edward Stevens Center - 109

  • “Why Lewis Ended the Great War Debate,” Dr. Lilian Lindén
  • “Slithering from Poly to Pan: Barfield’s Criticism of Miracles: A Preliminary Study,” Dr. Landon Loftin
  • “Was Owen Barfield Really an Inkling?,” Dr. Harry Lee Poe

Chair: Dr. Bart Fowler


6D: Retracing Old Steps

Edward Stevens Center - 207

  • “Walking with Dinosaurs: Following the Steps of the Cretaceous,” Dr. Michael Christensen
  • “Variation(s) on a Date, or, When C.S. Lewis Read to the Mermaids,” Dr. Sarah Waters
  • “A Needful New Look: Correcting Chronologies and Characterizations of Joy Davidman,” Rev'd Dr. Andrew Lazo

Chair: Dr. Scott Key


6E: Sex and Gender

Edward Stevens Center - 208

  • “Seven Genders in That Hideous Strength and Lewis's Epistemology,” Mrs. Willa Hoard
  • “Celebrating Gender in 1943: Gratitude for Gendered Embodiment in Perelandra,” Dr. Josh Herring

Chair: Dr. Jennifer McNutt


6F: Surprised by Maths

Edward Stevens Center - 209

  • “The Business of Lewis: Private Matters with Public Impact,” Miss Annie Mae Platter
  • “Good Reading and Good Mathematics: Comparing C.S. Lewis and G.H. Hardy,” Dr. Josiah Reiswig
  • “Surprised by Maths: Dispelling the Cloaking Enchantment,” Prof. Evan Hedlund

Chair: Mr. Roy Wallen

Break
10:45 – 11 a.m.
Keynote Panel Discussion
11 – 12:30 p.m.

Hosted by Dr. John Nelson (Premier Christian Radio)

Lunch/Send-off
12:30 p.m.