Lewis Festival Scholar Series

Today's podcast features Festival Co-Founder Sarah Arthur. Sarah is the author of a dozen nonfiction books on the intersection of faith and great literature. She shares a profound, multifaceted talk on her love of Lewis and her argument with him based on the Festival's 2022 theme, “Women and C.S. Lewis.” For more information on the annual C.S. Lewis Festival that takes place every September, please visit us at cslewisfestival.org.  

Ann Voskamp was the featured speaker in 2022 at the annual C.S. Lewis Festival in Petoskey, Michigan. Her talk, Reflections and Women and C.S. Lewis, took place at the Saturday Seminar at Great Lakes Center for the Arts. It is a story of women, C.S. Lewis, and a story that moves far beyond the walls of the world. For more information on the annual C.S. Lewis Festival that takes place every September, please visit us at cslewisfestival.org.  

The C.S. Lewis Festival welcomed best-selling author Ann Voskamp as keynote speaker in 2022. At a sold-out event at Great Lakes Center for the Arts, Ann talked about the joy combined with the profound struggles she went through in writing her latest book WAYMAKER: Finding the way to the life you've always dreamed of. It is a deeply personal and moving talk and includes a poignant sit-down discussion with Festival Co-Founder Sarah Arthur. For more information on the annual C.S. Lewis Festival that takes place every September, please visit us at cslewisfestival.org.  

This episode features Kristen Johnson, Professor of Theology and Christian Formation at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. In 2018, Kristen was named as one of the "New Female Theologians Worth Knowing" by Christianity Today. This recording is of her lecture "The Inner Ring: How C.S. Lewis can help us Engage Friendship, Community and our Deep Differences." Many writers and thinkers are asking questions about how we can navigate the deep differences of our age.  In a memorable lecture delivered in 1944, C.S. Lewis probed what he believed to be a permanent aspect of human existence, namely our desire to be on the insideof the "inner ring" and our terror at the prospect of being left on the outside. Kristen explores this in a very engaging and profoundly enlightening talk.

Hear Trygve Johnson share on a deeply personal and profound topic, Providential Friendship: How God used a simple friendship to inspire the imagination of the Christian faith. His talk delves into the concept of providence in friendships and the  specific, God-inspired friendship of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien.

David Crouse sits down with Philip at the majestic Great LakesCenter for the Arts in Bay Harbor, Michigan. Over 300 attended in what turned out to be a deeply personal interview with Philip on the cusp of the launch of, what Philip said, is the most important book he's ever written, his auto-biography, Where the Light Fell. Publishers Weekly calls it “a gripping memoir”.

Join us for a very special interview with renowned author Ann Voskamp! Festival Co-Founder David Crouse sits down for a zoom interview with Ann to discuss her new book, life, and of course, C.S Lewis. Consider this a taste of the 2022 C.S Lewis Festival headlined by Ann Voskamp herself!

This is the third and final talk on C.S. Lewis and War delivered by esteemed author and Dorothy Sayers scholar Crystal Downing. Downing is Co-Director of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College and co-holder of the Marion E. Wade Chair in Christian Thought at Wheaton College: a position she shares with her husband Dr. David Downing.Crystal spoke on how the two world wars influenced not only Sayers personally but also her vocation as a detective fiction novelist and Christian play write.  Enjoy!

The 2nd talk in this series, Lewis and War, is a marvelous presentation by Dr. David Downing, Co-Director, of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College and co-holder of the Marion E. Wade Chair in Christian Thought at Wheaton College: a position he shares with his wife Crystal Downing.   The title of David's talk is C.S. Lewis: Neither Patriot nor Pacifist but Patient

Welcome to season 3 of the Lewis Festival Scholar Series!This first episode visits 2015 for a talk by Dr. Joseph Loconte, Senior Fellow in Christianity and Culture at King's College in New York City and Director of the Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation.  He is also a highly respected speaker and author and he based his talk on his book A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and A Great War. Dr. Loconte postulates had there been no Great War, there would have been no Hobbit, no Lord of the Rings, no Narnia, and perhaps no conversion to Christianity by C. S. Lewis. 

Film producer and podcast host David Crouse in a free ranging interview with renowned British poet & author Malcom Guite. Included is Malcom’s personal reflection on C.S. Lewis, Grateful Dead founder Jerry Garcia, Dante, Keats & Shelly, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

In the penultimate episode of Season 2, Lewis scholar Rev. Dr. Michael Ward presents his discovery that the Narnia books are secretly patterned according to the imagery of the 7 heavens. 

This episode continues a talk from the 2018 C.S. Lewis Festival in which Rev. Dr. Malcolm Guite examines Dante's influence over renowned poets including Chaucer, Milton, Shelly, T.S. Elliot, and, especially, C.S. Lewis.

In this episode, we get the first of two talked on Lewis’s masterpiece, The Chronicles of Narnia, and why it’s considered the greatest children’s fantasy series of the 20th century, byLewis Scholar & best-selling author Rev. Dr. Michael Ward.

In the debut episode of The Lewis festival Scholar Series, we visit 2018 to hear from renowned poet & author Rev. Dr. Malcolm Guite. Rev. Dr. Guite shares his knowledge of the Lewis and Dante and their common thread, explains why Lewis was a life-long reader of Dante’s, and much more. Join us for the rest of Season 2, released on Fridays at noon.

The C. S. Lewis Festival Scholar Series presents a special episode in honor of Walter Hooper, renowned Lewis scholar and C.S. Lewis’ private secretary and literary trustee. Walter shares personal and intimate stories of his time with Jack Lewis and Lewis’s circle of remarkable friends including JRR Tolkien from the 2009 C.S. Lewis Festival in Petoskey, MI. (cslewisfestival.org).

In the last episode of Season 1, David Crouse interviews Jerry Root. The interview covers his conversion, his introduction to C.S. Lewis, and the inspiration behind his numorous books on Lewis. The interview was conducted over Zoom and a video recording can be found at this link: https://youtu.be/1pqzsCWrlmw,Enjoy! See you next season. To Narnia and The North!

Today’s podcast continues to delve into the surprising imagination of C. S. Lewis with Dr. Phil Jamieson, teacher-lecturer-and minister. As a professor he taught a seminary class and became concerned when he realized many of his students had never read fiction. Phil was concerned they would lose their wonder of scripture so he decided to teach a class on Lewis that addressed this issue which is the basis of his talk .

In this episode, Dr. Jerry Root continues to delve into the surprising imagination of Lewis. That imagination produced poetry, literary criticism, mythopia, apologetics, science fiction, and fairy tale.

Today on the Lewis Festical Scholar Series, Mark Neal takes an intriguing look into how you define imagination. C. S. Lewis had a very nuanced understanding of imagination and Mark looks at four of the types Lewis identified.

Our premier episode is The Surprising Imagination of C.S. Lewis with renowned Lewis Scholar and professor Dr. Jerry Root. Dr. Root dives deep into the fascinating subject of Lewis’s extraordinary ability to create imaginative imagery.

We’re excited to announce the premiere of the Lewis Festival Scholar Series! Join us every week beginning September 25th at noon for the release of this newly edited podcast series!