Speakers

Associate Professor of English at Alderson Broaddus University in West Virginia

Tolkien and Lewis

Dr. Charlie W. Starr is an Associate Professor of English at Alderson Broaddus
University in West Virginia. He teaches, writes, and lectures on Classic and American
literature, film, theology, and on the works of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Charlie has
published numerous scholarly essays, over a hundred popular articles, a dozen chapters
for book anthologies, and seven books (fiction, non-fiction, and scholarly) including his
most recent study, The Faun’s Bookshelf: C. S. Lewis on Why Myth Matters. Charlie has
published over a dozen never-before-seen C. S. Lewis manuscripts including a lost sequel
to The Screwtape Letters and will soon be releasing more new Lewis documents. Dr.
Starr has been hailed as the world’s leading expert on C. S. Lewis’s handwriting.

Professor of Philosophy & Humanities at Saint Louis University

Saruman’s Sophistry and Gandalf’s Wisdom: Augustinian Rhetoric in Tolkien’s the Lord of the Rings

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.

Tolkien Artist

Middle Earth through the eyes of an Artist

Will is an old school Middle Earth illustrator/fantasy artist. Having one foot in England and one in the United States and working in both in traditional and new media, he finds inspiration in natural landscapes, the writings of J.R.R.Tolkien, and Bible images.

Honorary Junior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham

Responsive sacrifices and affective responses from Hobbits and Other Middle Earth Residents

Dr Sarah Waters is an Honorary Junior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham, and her research centres on the undiscussed but important relationship between Lewis’ writings and Shakespeare, she is currently working on a book on Narnia and Shakespeare which is part of her broader research project on Lewis’ work on Shakespeare and the interconnected nature of his academic and fiction writing. She has published on Lewis’ science fiction and its allusions to Shakespeare and is also interested more broadly in how the Inklings engaged with Shakespeare, beyond just those walking trees of Tolkien. Connected and yet worlds apart, she completed an interdisciplinary medical humanities PhD which brought Shakespeare, early modern proto-medical treatises, present-day psychiatric practice and diagnostics, and contemporary psychosocial research into dialogue. Her thesis focused on the gendering, labeling, and voice crushing of the female experience of melancholia in the early modern period and depression now, with plenty of Shakespeare but not a word from the Inklings.

Software Engineering Instructor at Waukesha County Technical College

Navigating Technology with Tolkien

Matt Green is a life-long technologist, from assisting his dad in distributing projects and sound systems at church as a child to learning to program as a pre-teen in the early 80s. When his employer, Metavante, created the first Internet Banking Web Site he was tasked with training the first group of web developers who would make these sites. After more than a decade of managing the technical skill development for Metavante, Matt joined the faculty at Waukesha County Technical College’s (WCTC) Web and Software Developer program. Matt focuses on teaching Mobile and Web Development along with automation, IOT, and scripting. Additionally, Matt is the co-faculty advisor of the IT Club that has won multiple state and national competitions in Information Security and Java Programming as well as teaching and coordinating global business courses that engage students in multiple countries. Matt has spoken at multiple WordCamp (WordPress) events, Study Abroad, and Higher Education Conferences in Wisconsin and throughout the US.

His graduate studies at Concordia University Wisconsin focused on technology and education and he is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Contextual Ministry with a focus in Faith-Based Communication. Matt will be sharing findings and thoughts from his current studies and research. Matt learned to love Tolkien’s writings in his undergraduate studies–Even though his degree is in Business Computing and Computational Mathematics, his favorite undergraduate course was a Tolkien literature course taught by Mike Foster at ICC (Illinois Central College).

When Matt is not studying or teaching about technology, he is probably grilling, baking, or hanging out with his wife and daughters who are all current college students.

Independent scholar, has previously served as Professor of English Literature at Taylor University, Huntington University, and Nyack College

The Doom That We Must Deem”: Medieval Literary Models for Tolkien’s Dialogue on Fate and Providence in The Lord of the Rings

Joe Martyn Ricke, an independent scholar, has previously served as Professor of English Literature at Taylor University, Huntington University, and Nyack College. He holds a Ph.D. from Rice University, where he studied with Jane Chance. He also served as the Director of the Center for the Study of C. S. Lewis & Friends at Taylor University from 2015 – 2020. During that time he directed two international conferences, published three books and five scholarly articles, and led four summer research projects with groups of undergraduates. His work on Shakespeare, especially the characterization of shrewish women, has resulted in numerous conference presentations and several publications including “Parody, Performance, and the “Ultimate” Meaning of Noah’s Shrew” in Mediaevalia; “Kate, the Commonplace: The Framing of the Shrew,” in the MLA volume Approaches to Teaching Taming of the Shrew; and “Snarky Shrews: Gender Comedy and the Uses of Sarcasm” in the book Words that Tear the Flesh: Essays on Sarcasm in Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Cultures. He has been a participant in four NEH Summer Research Seminars or Institutes. He is a poet, a singer/songwriter, an actor and director, and a gardener. He is also the founder and host of the weekly InklingFolkFellowship, a worldwide (Zoom) gathering of scholars and fans of the Inklings. In 2010 he founded and has since organized the C. S. Lewis and the Middle Ages sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies. His most recent essay will be published in the forthcoming issue of Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal.