It is not often I am thinking about Eastern European time! However, this Friday, on April 23rd at 7 pm EEST, I will be speaking to the C. S. Lewis and Kindred Spirits Society, which has connections in Romania and has served as a conversation point for Inklings scholarship and imaginative artistry in Eastern Europe. Canadian George MacDonald scholar Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson will host an hour or so of conversation with myself and scholar-poet-priest, Malcolm Guite, followed by a good amount of time for Q&A. I am excited for the time when we can all sit at table together to talk about great and beautiful things. Meanwhile, though, Zoom allows for great conversations to go global, and I hope you can join us.

Here are the times as they might relate to you:

• 7 pm EEST
• 5 pm BST (I think the poster might be wrong on that one)
• 1 pm AST (my time in Prince Edward Island!)
• 12 pm EST
• 11 am Central
• 10 am Pacific
• 1am Japan Time (Saturday morning)

The free registration is here (and you can find the announcements all over Facebook). Below is the announcement that went out in the newsletter. I would encourage you, scholar or reader, to consider being a member or support of the Society as it does ground-breaking work on the continent. And I hope to see you there!

C. S. Lewis & Kindred Spirits Connected Presents ‘Inklings of Imagination’

On April 23rd at 7 pm EEST (4pm BST) ‘Inklings & Kindreds’ scholar Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson will host these two delightful raconteurs in an exploration of the value of imaginative literature generally, and why the work of ‘C. S. Lewis & Kindred Spirits’ specifically is significant for the world today. As highly regarded scholars for their work, these consummate teachers are equally admired amongst peers and students for their deep love of and playful enthusiasm for that material. For them it is not stuffy scholasticism, rather, it is the Stuff of Life.

The cup of tea/coffee is optional and local!

We are very much looking forward to seeing you.

On behalf of the Organising Team,
Denise Vasiliu
Lector, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi
CEO of Adora Christi Foundation

Register Here

Biographies

The Revd Dr Malcolm Guite is a Fellow of Girton College Cambridge, where he was also chaplain. Now retired to focus on his poetry, performance, and academic writing, Malcolm continues as a visiting professor at such institutions as Regent College (Vancouver), Duke University, and Durham University. Malcolm has lived in Nigeria, Canada, and England.

Dr. Brenton Dickieson is host of the highly regarded ‘Pilgrim in Narnia’ blog, a free-lance writer, and associate professor at multiple universities including Regent College (Vancouver), University of PEI, and the online Signum University. Perhaps the only scholar of both the creator of Narnia and that of Anne of Green Gables, discussing ‘kindred spirits’ is truly Brenton’s language. Brenton has lived on two of Canada’s three coasts, and also in Japan.

For further introduction, visit:

• Malcolm’s Spells in the Library, his recent publication Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, or this What If radio interview.
• Brenton’s A Pilgrim in Narnia, the LM Montgomery Inst podcast he hosts, or this guest podcast on Till We Have Faces.
• Both Malcolm and Brenton feature in the ‘Faith in Imagination’ documentary series: The Fantasy Makers: Tolkien, Lewis, & MacDonald and The Science-Fiction Makers: Rousseau, Lewis, & L’Engle.

Membership Information

The C. S. Lewis & Kindred Spirits Society was created in 2018 by the Agora Christi Foundation of Iași, Romania. In turn, the CSLKS Society has established a “Friends of C.S. Lewis & Kindred Spirits Society” to support the project of Agora Christi in cooperation with the English Department at the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, organized around the study of the lives and works of the Inklings, beginning with C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. This project is not limited to Iași or Romania but has already reached post-communist Eastern Europe as well as Western Europe, Asia, and North America.

In November 2020, we hosted a C. S. Lewis & Kindred Spirits Connected ZOOM meeting on “Of this and other worlds: Narnia at 70” celebrating the 70th anniversary of the publication of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we produced our first newsletter in January 2020, and we hope to launch a CSLKS Society website soon.

Now, we are glad to announce that we will be sponsoring:

• another C. S. Lewis & Kindred Spirits Connected ZOOM meeting on 23rd of April with a lively discussion between Inklings scholars Malcolm Guite and Brenton Dickieson, moderated by George MacDonald scholar Kirstin Jefferson, and
• in November 2021- the 5th edition of the C. S. Lewis & Kindred Spirits International Interdisciplinary Conference, originally scheduled for November 2020 and postponed because of COVID19

Some of the papers given at the 2018 conference have been published in Linguaculture (Iași) Volume 10, Number 2, 2019, which can be accessed at http://journal.linguaculture.ro/archive/65-volume-10-number-2-2019.  Linguaculture, Volume 5, Number 2, 2014, also published several papers from previous meetings at http://journal.linguaculture.ro/archive/53-volume-5-number-2-2014. Articles from these volumes can be downloaded as pdfs.

We encourage all of you to support the work and mission of the C. S. Lewis & Kindred Spirits Society by becoming a member of the Friends of the CSLKS. Click here to become a member.