“Gardeners of the Galaxies? How Imaginary Worlds Teach Us to Care for This One”: A discussion with Sørina Higgins and Brenton Dickieson on Inkling Folk Fellowship (Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 4pm Eastern)

In many parts of the northern hemisphere, all manner of folks are getting out of doors and digging their fingers in cool, rich earth. We do this for food, for beauty, for health and exercise, and for a Hobbit-like love of green, growing things.

In the ways that we attend to our urban gardens, suburban walkways, farms, and public spaces, in the attention we pay to what we eat and where our food comes from, and in the decisions we make about how we live on the planet, we are becoming increasingly aware of how implicated we are with our environments.

That connection deepens with our work as artists, poets, storytellers, and lovers of great, rich literature. These are places where our subcreative acts as little makers reflect a deeper, creative impulse, as J.R.R. Tolkien captures it in his poem, “Mythopoeia.” For lovers of the Inklings and other mythopoeic writers, literature and film are never merely the sum of their value as entertainment, but will always draw us into a deeper understanding of life.

Thus, Brenton Dickieson and Sørina Higgins are interested in exploring “How Imaginary Worlds Teach Us to Care for This One” in an anthology of essays with the working title, “Gardeners of the Galaxy.” They will join the Inkling Folk Fellowship on Friday, April 29 to discuss their open call for essays and artistic pieces and to be part of a larger discussion about the ways in which the effect of going to another “world” in literature or film or fancy can transform and enlarge our perspectives of how we might live meaningfully in the everyday world we inhabit.

So, join us this Friday, April 29, 4 p.m. (EDT), to join the conversation and, maybe, to start working on your essay or creative proposal for the imagined volume (not to mention your garden and chicken coop).

Link to Call for Proposals: 

CFP: Gardeners of the Galaxies: How Imaginary Worlds Teach Us to Care for This One by Drs. Sørina Higgins and Brenton Dickieson

Zoom Link:

Please see the Inkling Folk Fellowship event on Facebook here.

Biographies:

Sørina Higgins is a faculty member at Signum University. She earned her Ph.D. in English from Baylor University in 2021 with a focus on theatre of the modern occult revival. She edited an academic essay collection entitled The Inklings and King Arthur, wrote an introduction to Charles Williams’s Taliessin Through Logres, and produced an edition of Williams’s early play The Chapel of the Thorn. She is also the author of the blog The Oddest Inkling, devoted to a systematic study of Charles Williams’ works.

Brenton Dickieson also teaches at Signum University and is an Associate Professor in Applied Communication, Leadership, and Culture at the University of Prince Edward Island. Brenton researches the intersection between faith, culture, and literature and curates the blog, A Pilgrim in Narnia. He earned his Ph.D. in Theology and Religious Studies from the University of Chester in 2019. His rewritten thesis, The Shape of the Cross in C.S. Lewis’ Spiritual Theology, is contracted with Oxford University Press.