Last week, we celebrated the 80th anniversary of the first book publication (February 9, 1942) of C. S. Lewis’s first real blockbuster, The Screwtape Letters. I published my piece “All Things Screwtape: A Pilgrim in Narnia List of Resources on C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.”

Also in the celebration, last week the Inkling Folk Fellowship did a three-hour reading of the entire book, one letter/chapter per reader. It was a monumental event! However, almost immediately I realized that this was just too big! We were chatting in the Zoom chat, thinking about ideas and sharing quotes and possibilities and concerns…. Too much very cool material to simply read and not talk about. Joe Ricke, the Inkling Folk Fellowship grand vizier thought so too and has created an event to curate a space for just that kind of conversation. I’m sharing his slightly edited invitation note here below.

I get to present on my “Cosmic Find in The Screwtape Letters“, very briefly teasing out some of the implications for connecting Dr. Ransom of C.S. Lewis’ aptly misnamed “Space Trilogy” to The Screwtape Letters. Here are some ways you can prep for my 5-minute talk teaser:

• Read my publication: Brenton D.G. Dickieson, “The Unpublished Preface to C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters,” Notes and Queries 60.2 (2013): 296-298 (email me (junkola[at]gmail[dot]com) if you are a scholar, student, or researcher who doesn’t have institutional access to the original)
• Read “A Cosmic Shift in The Screwtape Letters (Paper Link for the Mythlore article, with Resources, and see this podcast)
• Of that longer post that summarizes everything, I would also suggest these pieces:
  • How Screwtape was Introduced to the World
  • A Cosmic Shift in The Screwtape Letters (Paper Link, with Resources, and see this podcast)
  • Why Didn’t Someone See it First? Discussing the Screwtape-Ransom Discovery (Blog Post)
  • When Screwtape Haunts in Eden: A Lecture on C.S. Lewis’ Fantasy Writings (Lecture)
  • A Manuscript List and Timeline of The Screwtape Letters
• Email me if you would like a PDF of the handout I’ll distribute tonight

I’m presenting late in the agenda, so PM me on Facebook or email if you are trying to connect and something fails. You can also see the Facebook event here.

Pop-up Mini-Conference: The Screwtape Letters

Not more than twenty minutes into the Inkling Folk Fellowship Screwtape marathon, it became obvious that the richness, profundity, and (sometimes) perplexing nature of C. S. Lewis’s 1942 masterpiece needed more than a read-aloud (although we wouldn’t have traded that experience for a ride on the #73 to the St. Pancras/British Library stop). Too many ideas, conversations, questions were flying back and forth in our minds and in the chat to just leave them suspended in the Zoomosphere. 

So. We abruptly switched our upcoming schedule (see the bottom of the page for that) and asked for proposals for five-minute response papers from various perspectives.

And . . . here we go!

Join the Inkling Folk Fellowship (aka, “Safe Place for Nerds”) via Zoom this Friday at 4 p.m. (EST) for our Pop-up Mini-Conference on The Screwtape Letters. The two-hour session will look something like this:

Panel One: Reception and Context

• James Stockton: May 14, 1942 “somewhat cheeky” Review of Screwtape in Oxford Magazine.
•  Paul Michelson: Early Reception of Screwtape
•  Joe: Screwtape in War-Time

Panel Two: Screwtape as Theologian

• William O’Flaherty: The Satanic Anti-Thought Police
• Rob Garcia: Screwtape and the Uniqueness of Persons
• John Stanifer: Iconoclastic Prayer in Screwtape
• Sarah Waters: Life, Death, and the Space in-between

Panel Three: Problematizing The Screwtape Letters

• Edwin Woodruff Tait: Depression and Moral Decisions in Screwtape/Lewis
• Brenton Dickieson: The Ransom Connection
• Grace Tiffany: Damned Language and Screwtape

Bring some tea, biscuits, and your copy of Screwtape. Cool Zoom backgrounds are optional. The Zoom link is below. Bring a friend (but please remind them — and yourself — to mute if they come in late!). Stay involved with the IFF by linking/following our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/InklingFolkFellowship  
and visiting our website at https://www.inklingfolk.org/

Here that Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81081632918

What’s Ahead? February 25: A Conversation with author Colleen Warren about her new book, Reentering Eden: Christian Meditation in Nature.