Speakers

Craig A. Boyd

Professor of Philosophy & Humanities at Saint Louis University

Fighting the Long Defeat: A Long & Obedient Hope in the Same Direction

Craig A. Boyd is Professor of Philosophy & Humanities at Saint Louis University. Among the books, he has published are The Virtues: A Very Short Introduction with Kevin Timpe (Oxford University, 2020), Virtues and Their Vices co-edited with Kevin Timpe (Oxford University Press, 2014); Faith and Reason: Three Views, with Alan Padgett and Carl Raschke (Intervarsity Press, 2014), and A Shared Morality: A Narrative Defense of Natural Law Ethics (Brazos Press, 2007). His scholarly articles have appeared in such venues as The Heythrop Journal, Christian Scholar’s Review, Christianity & Literature, New Blackfriars, and The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. He has recently published articles on “The Humility of Sam Gamgee,” “The Wisdom of Gandalf, “The Thomistic Virtue of Hope in Leaf by Niggle,” and “The Vice of Curiositas in Augustine, Aquinas, and Tolkien.” His areas of academic interest include medieval philosophy, the virtues, natural law ethics, and the writings of Tolkien.

Charlie W. Starr

Associate Professor of English at Alderson Broaddus University in West Virginia

Tolkien’s Alliterative Metre or How to Write Poetry Like the Rohirrim

Dr. Charlie W. Starr is a Visiting Professor of Inklings Studies at Northwind Seminary. He teaches, writes and lectures on the works of C. S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Owen Barfield. Charlie has published over a hundred articles and essays, a dozen chapters for book anthologies, and nine books (fiction, non-fiction) including Light: C. S. Lewis’s First and Final Short Story, The Faun’s Bookshelf: C. S. Lewis on Why Myth Matters, and The Lion’s Country: C. S. Lewis’s Theory of the Real. Charlie has published over thirty never-before seen C. S. Lewis manuscripts including a lost sequel to The Screwtape Letters and has been hailed as the world’s leading expert on C. S. Lewis’s handwriting.

Dr. Melody Green

Dean, Associate Professor of Christianity and Culture

Tolkien: 50 Years On

J. R. R. Tolkien died on September 2, 1973. At the time, the vast majority of his stories had never been published, and while obituaries were published in newspapers around the world, many of them included snarky comments accusing his fiction of being juvenile and easily forgotten. 50 years later, however, much more of his fiction has been published, and it has gained ground in both popularity and in serious scholarly attention. This presentation will focus on what has happened in Tolkien scholarship and fandom in the 50 years since his death.

Fontaine Waite

Spiritual Director and Pastoral Counsellor, Little Dove Spiritual Direction and Counseling Services

An Unexpected Archetype

Fontaine Waite comes from a very ecumenical background and enjoys spending time with people of many different persuasions in the Christian faith and wisdom traditions. Her deepest interest is spiritual growth and her profession as pastoral counsellor and spiritual Director, complements this passion. She believes and encourages others to find where God is at work in their lives and in their everyday story. In conversation and in her work, there is nothing so fulfilling as teasing out how God is inviting us forward into deeper growth, transformation and union with the Spirit. With this in mind, finding God in the stories of J.R.R. Tolkien came very naturally. Fontaine has been a J.R.R. Tolkien enthusiast for well over two decades. She says she
discovered the wonders of Middle Earth later in life, but has never been the same since she made the discovery. With every new reading (or view of the Peter Jackson movies), there are more insights to glean and ponder. She enjoys a deeply fulfilling marriage of 42 years and lives with her husband Ken in
Southern Ontario, Canada. She has two grown sons, one who is now in heaven, and one who is currently relocating to New Brunswick Canada. She loves to read, play with her grandchildren, garden, spend time in nature, take photographs in nature, bird watch, meditate, write poetry and spiritual reflections, as well as spend time engaging in deep, meaningful conversation.

Austin Freeman

Assistant professor and
chair of the apologetics department at Houston Christian University

Christianity is a Fairy Tale: The Theological Context of Tolkien’s On Fairy Stories

The Victorian and Edwardian eras saw the formation of a culturally influential body of Christian fantasy literature which remains impactful to this day. Tolkien is only the summation of a line of British Romantic theology that consciously chose to work out its deepest beliefs in a specific fictional genre. Why is this the case? What did authors like MacDonald, Chesterton, Lewis, Tolkien, and more see in this sort of literature, and why was it indeed so effective in making an enduring imaginative case for Christianity? Austin Freeman argues that a particular historical context set the stage for a recovery of a coherent and holistic Christian vision of reality.

Chris Marchand

Podcast host - Post Consumer Reports

Instructing the Children of Illúvatar: approached to introducing Tolkien to young
people