50th Annual

Writing & Literature Conference

 

Faith and Fiction:

C. S. Lewis and His

Chronicles of Narnia

 

   

September 29 & 30, 2005

 

  

Sponsored by the Wheaton College

 

Department of English

 

and the

 

Marion E. Wade Center

 

  

  

Thursday, September 29, 2005

 

1:00      Registration

 

2:00      Walter Hooper

“It All Began With a Picture:  The Making of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia”

 

3:45      Michael Ward

“The Refinements of Covetousness:  Greed and Gold in The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’”

 

7:30      Katherine Paterson

            “Co-Creators with God”

 

8:45      Reception

Sponsored courtesy of Touchstone Magazine

 

Friday, September 30, 2005

 

9:15      Peter Schakel

“Entering Faerie-Land:  Reading the Narnian Chronicles for Magic and Meaning”

 

10:35    Michael Ward (Chapel)

            “Faith, Imagination, and C.S. Lewis”

 

11:30    David Downing

“Consider the Source:  Creative Synthesis in the Chronicles”

 

2:00      Panel of Wheaton Authors on C.S. Lewis

 

3:15      Refreshments

 

3:45      The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: 

Movie Preview

 

5:30      Banquet

 

7:30      Tom Key

“C.S. Lewis on Stage”

 

            Reception following performance

            Sponsored courtesy of InterVarsity Press

 

 Notes on Speakers:

 

David C. Downing is R.W. Schlosser Professor of English at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. He has authored numerous books and articles on C.S. Lewis. His Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy was named one of the five best books ever published on Lewis. The Most Reluctant Convert: C.S. Lewis’s Journey to Faith, was a 2003 Evangelical Christian Publishers Association Gold Medallion finalist. His most recent book is Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis.

 

Walter Hooper is Literary Advisor to the Estate of C.S. Lewis and editor of dozens of Lewis’s works, including (among others) Christian Reflections, God in the Dock, Poems, Selected Literary Essays and All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C.S. Lewis.  In 1996, Hooper published his landmark reference volume C.S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide.  He is currently at work completing the third and final volume of C.S. Lewis’s collected letters.

 

Tom Key first presented his one-man play “C.S. Lewis on Stage” in 1978. Over the years, his performances as the Oxford don have earned acclaim from both drama critics and Lewis acquaintances. Mr. Key’s play has been presented across the United States and Canada, including a production at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. and the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.  Among his numerous stage and television performances, Mr. Key has also starred in an award-winning, off-Broadway musical, “Cotton Patch Gospel,” which he conceived and co-authored with Harry Chapin. 

   

Katherine Paterson has received eleven honorary degrees and numerous awards for her realistic children’s books. Her Bridge to Terabithia garnered the prestigious Newbery Medal, awarded annually for the most distinguished American children's book published the previous year.  In addition to her fifteen novels, she has published seven non-fiction volumes, which include speeches, book reviews, and essays sharing her reflections on the process of writing and her insights into the wonder of the imagination.

 

Peter Schakel is Peter C. and Emajean Cook Professor of English and chair of the English Department at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He has written or edited six books on Lewis, including Reading with the Heart: the Way into Narnia; Imagination and the Arts in C.S. Lewis; and Reason and Imagination in C.S. Lewis: A Study of ‘Till We Have Faces’. He has also published in the areas of literature, poetry, and Jonathan Swift.  His most recent book is The Way into Narnia: A Reader’s Guide.

 

Michael Ward holds an M.A. from Oxford University, and is Chaplain of Peterhouse, Cambridge University. He is a former president of the Oxford Lewis Society and curator of The Kilns, Lewis’s home outside of Oxford. Rev. Ward worked as a research assistant on Walter Hooper’s C.S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide. Other writings include contributions to symposia such as Lightbearer in the Shadowlands: The Evangelistic Vision of C.S. Lewis, and Christ and Culture in Dialogue.

  

Registration Information

Pre-registration is closed at this time. You may pay at the door by cash or check; we do not accept credit cards.

Wheaton College is located 25 miles west of Chicago and is on a direct train line to downtown Chicago.  The College is 45 minutes from O’Hare Airport.

 Transportation to and from airport:

West Suburban Limousine       (630) 668-9600

Metra Commuter Train:

(To/From downtown Chicago)

(312) 322-6777 or (312) 836-7000

http://www.metrarail.com/

 

Hotels in the Wheaton area:

Wheaton Inn B&B                     (630) 690-2600

Holiday Inn Carol Stream           (630) 665-3000

Hampton Inn Carol Stream         (630) 681-9200

 

Guests must make their own arrangements.

 

All lectures and the dramatic presentation will be held in Coray Alumni Gym.  The banquet will be in the South Party Room in the Todd M. Beamer Center.

 

 

 

Inquiries to:

 

Laura Perry, Administrative Secretary

Department of English

Phone:  (630) 752-5051

Fax:  (630) 752-5555

E-mail:  english@wheaton.edu