Canadian Authors the Prime Minister Forgot to Read (a #canadareads post)

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Brenton Dickieson

Narcity did this little piece last week: “Justin Trudeau Wants Everyone To Read More Canadian Books & Here Are Some Options.” The Prime Minister mentions:

This is all in celebration of Canada Reads, an annual CBC competition where 5 celebrities sit together to debate 5 Canadian books worth reading. It is engaging entertainment to listen to and invites Canadians to read some of the great–and increasingly diverse–emerging storytellers in our fair land. These are usually very realistic books rather than my own world of speculative (or classical) fiction, so it often takes me a decade or two to get to the hottest new things. But historically, Canada Reads has included The Illegal by Lawrence Hill (a winner by the author of the gorgeous and disturbing Book of Negroes, which also won in 2009), ​The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King, Two Solitudes by Hugh MacLennan, The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis (a winning book that beat out The Birth House by Ami McKay), Generation X by Douglas Coupland, Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley, the game-changing A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews (which won in 2006 and won the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction), Life of Pi by Yann Martel (one of my favourite books ever, and perhaps SF), Michael Ondaatje’s genius In the Skin of a Lion (the 2002 winner), and Margaret Atwood’s brilliant book, The Year of the Flood (dystopic SF, so right in my world, which followed her Oryx and Crake, a 2005 contender).

Thus, PM Trudeau is entering a game well in play that millions of Canadians follow each year.

I am pretty critical of our prime minister, who is far better at showing gravitas than in making grave decisions. But I am very pleased to see him recognizing Canada’s literary history and arts community, though he continues his predecessor’s plan to functionally defund arts and humanities research in Canada. While I don’t know Heather O’Neill, I like his list. Robertson Davies is a Canadian treasure and Douglas Coupland is a weird and wonderful feature of the lost generation. PEI’s own Lucy Maud Montgomery is an international superstar, Canada’s bestselling storyteller–perhaps one day to be rivalled by Margaret Atwood. When Atwood came to PEI to talk about her sequel to the 2002 CBC Reads contender The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, more than 1% of our adult population showed up to see her. She’s really quite remarkable.

So kudos to Trudeau on his literary list! Plus, Justin certainly rates as one of the greatest world leaders in the “Great Hair” section.*

However, I wanted to write about “The Canadian Books the Prime Minister Forgot to Read.” Here is my list, which I hope diversifies our shared reading list in terms of genre (including fantasy and speculative fiction), style, national profile (a collection of authors who have lived in every region of Canada), and cultural background.

Guy Gavriel Kay

It continues to puzzle me, but Guy Gavriel Kay remains Canada’s least well-recognized international-profile writer. Perhaps it doesn’t puzzle me that much, because his entire publishing life has been solidly within the fantasy genre, and that’s simply not one of our privileged voices here in Canada (think of Atwood’s attempt to carve out “speculative fiction” as a new way of thinking about books). As he describes in this Guardian piece, Guy Kay honed his craft as a Tolkienist, even working on the editorial project, The Silmarillion. His literary and gorgeous urban fantasy meets Tolkien-like Nordic epic, The Fionavar Tapestry, remains one of my absolute favourite series ever. What many don’t know, but Canadians are starting to recognize, is that as Kay moved away from Tolkien-like fiction, he was able to carve out a genre in which he has become a master. The eleven novels since The Fionavar Tapestry are strong literary works of historical fiction that include some sort of fantastic thread within that entirely realistic literary world. From Canada’s prairies to the University of Toronto, to Oxford and then to the world, Guy Gavriel Kay is a must-read Canadian author.

Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson is one of Canada’s most distinctive literary voices. I don’t know if there is a large community of Afro-Caribbean-Canadian writers, but a mosaic of these different cultural realities appears in her writings as they combine with genre-defying literary experiments. Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber is a strong example of futuristic SF. As a Black woman writer, she has some of the inversive wit and sardony of Octavia Butler, with girl and women characters that make us want to reread Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti. But with Jamaican, Trinidadian, and other Carribian dialects transmuted to the planet Toussaint, Midnight Robber is impossible to read dispassionately–thus deserving its many award nominations. However, it is Hopkinson’s earlier novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, that is something completely new in the world both in terms of problematizing political choices (by showing them decades down the line) and for creating speculative fiction for which a definition of “fantasy” or “realism” depends entirely on one’s worldview. The Brown Girl in the Ring deserves the awards it has won, including being a contender in the 2008 Canada Reads competition.

While Nalo Hopkinson follows the literary style of Canada’s Harold Ladoo, lost too early, she creates her own voice in Afrofuturism.

Michael Crummey

No list of Canadian imaginative talent should be without a Newfoundlander. I don’t if the world knows about Newfoundland, a rugged and beautiful land where every hamlet and fishing village on this grand North Atlantic rock has its own traditions, accents, arts, stories, and secrets. A Labradorian by birth, Crummey is a prize-winning poet who slowly developed a craft for short stories and highly literary historical novels. Nalo Hopkinson’s novels take concentration and focus to read as we bend ourselves to the characters’ patois. Crummey’s complex writing also demands our literary attention, even when the setting and atmosphere are so immediately striking (such as his third novel, Galore). And although their language is beautifully crafted, both Hopkinson and Crummey lead with striking and troubling characters. Indeed, as a writer, Michael Crummey gives the reader no quarter in which to hide from the sheer reality he describes. His 2019 Giller-shortlisted The Innocents pinned me to the page and nearly broke my heart.

Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel is one of those artists that appear as an overnight success after a decade of hard work. While her part madness/part caper/part high school reunion character study, The Lola Quartet (2012), is certainly worth reading–my Goodreads review for it was “A strong book, like jazz”–it is her 2014 Station Eleven that is her breakout hit. St. John Mandel succeeded in creating an apocalypse that was not merely a disaster book, but the lived stories of people as they experience a crisis and can only experience “normal life” through memory and artifact. I have always suspected that the use of letters and memory could challenge the linearity of normal life-apocalypse-life, and St. John Mandel succeeds with dexterity and artistry in a completely accessible novel. It is a book that is worth rereading as we reflect on how we can grow after a year of pandemic conditions.

From Denman Island, British Columbia, to the literary big city, Emily St. John Mandel is one of the writers to watch over the next decade and brings something fresh both to dystopic fiction and to the Canadian scene.

Mark Sampson

In 2020, I reviewed Rebecca Rosenblum’s So Much Love–an author whose writing may turn out to be the new voice of Canadian realistic fiction. But as I am trying to open the world–and CanLit readers–to a greater sense of play in our literary landscape, I am going to return to Mark Sampson, whom I have reviewed several times (see here, here, and here). In either case, Rosenblum and Sampson are a dynamic literary partnership with quite distinct styles. Each of Sampson’s first three novels is a different genre, voice, and style. Sad Peninsula is international literary fiction with a significant historical thread, well-researched, immersive, and picturesque. The Slip is one of the funniest Canadian novels I have ever stumbled upon, a late-night read for smart people who like to laugh at themselves. And All the Animals on Earth is last year’s well-timed pandemic buster, an off-the-wall apocalypse that still has a way of calling us back to what is truly important. What I love most about Sampson’s life in letters is that he is consistently shaping his skill-set, believing that tale-craft does not fall from the sky but is won through years of practice.

And … the truth is that I know all this because I saw Mark working away at literary greatness in high school here in Prince Edward Island. While I dreamed about being a writer, he put pen to paper. I might be accused of being biased here, but this is a truth of the Canadian literary scene: people know one another in this big little country. I am friends with Mark and Rebecca, and yet I think my assessment stands. Plus, let’s be honest, we need a Prince Edward Island writer on this list!

Though not everyone has discovered Mark Sampson just yet, I suspect that in a decade he will be one of the authors that Canadians never forget to read.

Poetry Bonus: Louise Bernice Halfe, or Sky Dancer

While I am breaking the five-book rule here, I wanted to go past novels and look at at least one poet. Louise Halfe is known in Cree as Sky Dancer, and has become one of Canada’s leading indigenous poets. A residential school survivor, I have her Bear Bones and Feathers on my bedside table right now–her first collection of poetry, which won the Milton Acorn People’s Poet Award (which is big in Canada as Milton Acorn was a Prince Edward Island poet; Michael Crummey also won the award). Halfe’s Burning In This Midnight Dream was a profound discovery for me in 2020, a beautiful and courageous collection that quite had me reeling. I am still new to First Nations poetic traditions, but Sky Dancer’s work bodes well of a rising voice. These are hard books to read, but with rewards beyond the lyrical.

I would love to hear from you about what “Canadian Books the Prime Minister Forgot to Read.” Drop me a line, tweet this piece out with @BrentonDana tagged, or include a note in the comments below. This year’s Canada Reads list includes:

  • Olympian and broadcaster Rosey Edeh champions The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk
  • Singer-songwriter Scott Helman champions Two Trees Make a Forest by Jessica J. Lee
  • Actor and filmmaker Devery Jacobs champions Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead
  • Actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee champions Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
  • Chef, recording artist and TV host Roger Mooking champions Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

*And, begrudgingly, I will admit, PM Justin Trudeau didn’t panic or prevaricate when a pandemic hit, and didn’t get lost in conspiracy theories. Canada ranks among the steadiest of the G20 COVID-19 experiences.

Posted in Reflections | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 29 Comments

Biography of Dr. Brenton Dickieson

Posted on March 7, 2021 by Brenton Dickieson

Brenton D.G. Dickieson (BA, MCS, PhD)

For fifteen years, Brenton Dickieson (PhD, Chester, 2020) has taught at the University of Prince Edward Island. Returning to the home of his undergraduate studies in 2006, he is now the Lecturer in Theology and Literature at Maritime Christian College (Charlottetown, PE). Brenton also serves as Adjunct Instructor in Literature at The King’s College (New York City, NY), Lecturer and Preceptor at Signum University, and Distance Education Instructor in Spiritual Theology at Regent College (Vancouver, BC)–the home for his master’s degree in New Testament Studies. Brenton is also pleased to be a 2020-21 Distinguished Lecturer in Romantic Theology in the Doctor in Theology and Ministry at Northwind Seminary.

Dr. Dickieson’s peer-reviewed publications on literature and religion appear in leading journals such as Mythlore, Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies, Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal, Journal of the Southwest, and Notes and Queries, with reviews and review essays also in VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center, The Journal of Inklings Studies, Studies in Religion, and Literature and Theology.

As the author of more than 1,100 articles, blog posts, and reviews, Brenton has worked as a freelance author, columnist, and policy writer for Canadian magazines and the government of Prince Edward Island. As a theologian of literature, Brenton writes the popular website, A Pilgrim in Narnia, which explores the intersections of faith, fantasy, and fiction. With more than 1.1 million website hits and a yearly readership now exceeding 200,000, more than 8,000 social media followers, and significant networks within the scholarly and readerly worlds of C.S. Lewis and the Inklings, Brenton has a powerful platform for considering the literary, spiritual, and theological interest of some of our most famous world-builders, including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, L.M. Montgomery, and others. In becoming the Founding Producer and Host of the SSHRC-funded “MaudCast: The Podcast of the L.M. Montgomery Institute” in 2020, Brenton has increased his networks of popular and scholarly readers who like to talk about the books they love. Brenton is a popular guest speaker for theological and literary societies and a sought-after essayist.

As the winner of the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s Elizabeth Epperly Early Career Paper Award (2020), UPEI’s Hessian Award for Excellence in Teaching (2017), and the Mythopoeic Award for Inklings Scholarship (2018) for The Inklings and King Arthur edited by Sørina Higgins, which includes his chapter on C.S. Lewis and intertextuality, Brenton is poised to excel in scholarly pursuits in this new academic landscape in which we are navigating.

Brenton lives in the nearly magical land of Prince Edward Island with his superstar kindergarten teacher wife, Kerry, and their son, Nicolas, a singer-songwriter.

Education

PhD, Theology & Religious Studies (2013-2019)
University of Chester, UK
Thesis: “The Great Story on Which the Plot Turns”: Cruciformity in C.S. Lewis’ Narrative Spiritual Theology

Masters of Christian Studies (2003-2005)
Regent College, BC
Thesis: “Antisemitism and the Judaistic Paul: A Study of 1 Thess 2:14-16 in Light of Paul’s Social and Rhetorical Contexts and the Contemporary Question of Antisemitism”

B.A., Bible (1993-1997)
Maritime Christian College, PE

Teaching Experience

University of Prince Edward Island (2006-present)

Inquiry Studies (University 102) Team Member, UPEI (11 sections) (2015-present)

Global Issues Term Lecturer and Sessional Instructor, UPEI (10 sections) (2008-2013)
Sessional Lecturer, Faculty of Arts, UPEI (2006-present)

Taught 35 courses in the following areas of Religious Studies:

  • Popular Courses like “Skepticism, Atheism, Agnosticism, Belief,” “Religion and the End of the World,” “Myths of Love, Sex, and Marriage,” and “Myths of Hate and Evil”
  • Religions of the World (Western Traditions, twice with an Egypt focus)
  • Worldviews and Cultural Mythologies
  • Christian Studies (Early and Modern)
  • Christian Thought and Theology
  • The Old Testament, The New Testament
  • Religious Movements and Religious Conflict
  • Islam and Western Culture
  • Judaism and Antisemitism
  • Japanese Religion and Culture

Lecturer in Theology and Literature, Maritime Christian College, PE (2006-present)

Taught 26 courses in the following areas:

  • Religion and Literature (Middle Earth, Narnia, Harry Potter, Classical Literature, etc.)
  • New Religious Movements, World Religions and Worldviews
  • Faith and Culture, Philosophy, Homiletics
  • Biblical Greek (two semesters on a three-year rotation)
  • Bible courses such as “New Testament Survey,” “Apostle of the Heart Set Free,” “The Biblical Mosaic,” “How to Read the Bible for All its Worth,” “Biblical Eldership”

Distance Education Instructor in Spiritual Theology, Regent College, BC (2005-present)

Regent College’s international graduate distance education program includes online virtual classrooms and personal tutorials. I have been Tutor and Marker in Biblical and Spiritual Theology courses. From 2005-2013 I was TA Marker for Rikk Watts’ “New Testament Foundations,” as well as other courses including “Old Testament in the New” (Rikk Watts), “Matthew” (Rikk Watts), “The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul” (Gordon Fee). Currently, I am an Instructor in Spiritual Theology for Eugene Peterson’s courses, including “Soulcraft: Spiritual Formations,” focussing on the book of Ephesians, and “Jesus and Prayer.”

Adjunct Instructor in Literature, The King’s College, NY (2017-present)

I developed the curriculum for “The Fantasy and Science Fiction of C.S. Lewis,” an intensive undergraduate-level literature online course. I teach the course each spring semester, using lecture and discussion to guide the reading of Lewis’ most popular fiction.

Lecturer and Preceptor, Signum University (2016-present)

SignumU is an established online university offering an MA in literature to a growing global community of adult learners. Using technological ingenuity and cutting-edge pedagogy, Signum provides a high-quality education based on core values, focussing on areas such as Germanic Philology, Mythological and Classical Literature, Imaginative Literature, and Tolkien Studies. I lecture or work as a small group instructor (Preceptor) as a C.S. Lewis expert, theologian, and critical scholar, and have supervised 5 master’s theses. I teach “Introduction to Research, Theory, and Writing” (2017, 2018, 2019), “Folkloric Transformations: Vampires and Big Bad Wolves” (2016, 2020), “Mythologies of Love and Sex” (2016; 2019), “Literature, Film, and Technoculture” (2018), “Lewis & Tolkien” (2020).

Peer-Reviewed Publications

  • 2021: “Making Friends with the Darkness: L.M. Montgomery’s Popular Theodicy in Anne’s House of Dreams,” accepted with slight revision for peer-review publication in The Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies; in revision.
  • 2020: “A Cosmic Shift in The Screwtape Letters,” Mythlore 39, no. 1 (2020): 5-33.
  • 2020: “Rainbow Valley as Embodied Heaven: L.M. Montgomery’s Narrative Spirituality in Rainbow Valley,” Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies (2020).
  • 2019: “The Archangel Fragment and C. S. Lewis’s WWII-era World-building Project,” Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal 13 (2019): 11-28. Co-authored with Charlie W. Starr.
  • 2018: “Mixed Metaphors and Hyperlinked Worlds: A Study of Intertextuality in C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Cycle” pp. 81-113 in The Inklings and King Arthur: J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield on the Matter of Britain (ed. Sørina Higgins, Apocryphile Press).
  • 2013: “Nuestra Señora de las Sombras: The Enigmatic Identity of Santa Muerte,” Journal of the Southwest 55, no. 4 (Winter 2013): 435-471. Co-authored with Pamela Bastante.
  • 2013: “The Unpublished Preface to C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters,” Notes and Queries 60, no. 2 (2013): 296-298.

Other Academic Publications

  • 2019: “C.S. Lewis’s Theory of Sehnsucht as a Tool for Theorizing L.M. Montgomery’s Experience of ‘The Flash,’” The Faithful Imagination: Papers from the 2018 Francis White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends, Taylor University, edited by Joe Ricke and Ashley Chu, pp. 144-165. Conference Proceedings.
  • 2019: “Why the Lewis & Friends Colloquium is Awesome (It’s the Students),” The Faithful Imagination: Papers from the 2018 Francis White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends, Taylor University, edited by Joe Ricke and Ashley Chu, pp. 396-397. Anthologized article.
  • 2019: “An Awkward Look at Prayer, and C.S. Lewis’s Letters to Malcolm,” Touchstone 37, no. 2 (June 2019): 22-28.
  • 2018: “A Critical Moment in Lewis Gender Studies,” a review essay of Monika Hilder’s trilogy, The Feminine Ethos in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (2012), The Gender Dance: Ironic Subversion in C.S. Lewis’s Cosmic Trilogy (2013), and Surprised by the Feminine: A Rereading of C.S. Lewis and Gender (2013), VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center 35 (2018): 111-119.
  • 2018: “Echoes of the Eternal in C.S. Lewis’ Fiction,” a review essay of Marsha Daigle-Williamson, Reflecting the Eternal: Dante’s Divine Comedy in the Novels of C.S. Lewis (2015), VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center 35 (2018): e123-e131.
  • 2018: “(Re)Considering the Planet Narnia Thesis,” An Unexpected Journal 1, no. 4 (Advent 2018): 59-76. Invited article.
  • 2015: “‘Die Before You Die’: St. Paul’s Cruciformity in C.S. Lewis” in Both Sides of the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis, Theological Imagination and Everyday Discipleship (ed. Rob Fennell, Resource Publications, 2015), pp. 32-45.
  • 2013: “Stranger” and “Wise as a Serpent” in Dictionary of the Bible and Western Culture (eds. M. Gilmour and M. A. Beavis; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013), 521, 601-602.
  • 2012: “The Pedagogical Value of The Screwtape Letters for a New Generation,” Inklings Forever VIII (2012): 12-29. Conference proceedings.
  • 2005: Antisemitism and the Judaistic Paul: A Study of 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 in Light of Paul’s Social and Rhetorical Contexts and the Contemporary Question of Antisemitism (Portland, OR: Theological Research Exchange Network, 2005). Master’s thesis.

Author of more than twenty popular articles and three short stories, columnist for Island Family Magazine (2009-2012), writer of more than sixty album reviews and nine articles for the Living Light News (2000-2005), and more than 1,100 blog posts on A Pilgrim In Narnia and other popular and academic blogs.

Academic Conference Papers and Panels

  • Accepted for 2021: Upland, IN, Presenter: “As High as My Spirit, As Small as My Stature”: C.S. Lewis’ Theology of the Small and Monika Hilder’s Theological Feminism,” 12th Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends, Jun 2-5, 2022 (postponed from 2020 due to COVID-19).
  • Accepted for 2021: Edmonton, AB, Presenter: “The Personal Heresy and C.S. Lewis’ Autoethnographic Instinct: An Invitation to Intimacy in Literature and Theology,” The Christianity and Literature Study Group Annual Conference at Congress2021, May 28-29, 2021 (postponed from Congress2020 due to COVID-19).
  • Accepted for 2021: Edmonton, AB, Presenter: “Michael Gorman’s Narrative Spiritual Theology and C.S. Lewis’ Logic of Cruciformity: A Conversation Across Generations and Disciplines.” The Canadian-American Theological Association Meeting at Congress2021, May 28, 2021 (postponed from Congress2020 due to COVID-19).
  • 2020, Upland, IN, Presenter: “The Image of the Cross in C.S. Lewis’ Spiritual Theology.” Nolloquium (Digital Conference), Jun 5, 2020.
  • 2020: Upland, IN, Co-Presenter: “The Archangel Fragment and The Screwtape Letters: An Archival Discovery,” with Charlie W. Starr. C.S. Lewis & Friends Digital Tea, May 22, 2020.
  • 2020: Charlottetown, PE, Presenter, “Clarity, Care, Connection, and Credibility: Lessons from 15 Years of Online Teaching,” UPEI Teaching Community Conference, May 5, 2020.
  • Accepted for 2020: Charlottetown, PE, Presenter: “Making Friends with the Darkness: L.M. Montgomery’s Popular Theodicy in Anne’s House of Dreams.” Accepted after peer review for The L.M. Montgomery Institute’s 14th Biennial Conference, which has moved online as a “Forum” in 2020-21 due to COVID-19.
  • 2019: Halifax, NS, Presenter: “Unveiling Bird Box: Thinking about Genres of Apocalypse and Contemporary Culture,” International Conference on Religion & Film, St. Mary’s University, Jun 13, 2019.
  • 2018: Oxford, UK, Lecturer: “Dive: The Shape of the Cross in C.S. Lewis’ Writing,” the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society, Oct 23, 2018.
  • 2018: Charlottetown, PE, Presenter: “In Her Own Tongue: L.M. Montgomery’s Spirituality of Imaginative Literature,” The L.M. Montgomery Institute’s 13th Biennial Conference.
  • 2018: Upland, IN, Panel Moderator and Panelist: “The Quest for Bleheris,” with David C. Downing,” 11th Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends.
  • 2018: Upland, IN, Presenter: “C.S. Lewis’s Theory of Sehnsucht as a Tool for Theorizing L.M. Montgomery’s Experience of ‘The Flash,’” 11th Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends.
  • 2016: Glasgow, UK, Presenter: “Criticism as Conversion: Active Surrender in C.S. Lewis’ Spiritual Theology,” International Society for Religion, Literature, and Culture 18.
  • 2016: Upland, IN, Presenter: “Testing the Possibilities of the Screwtape-Ransom Speculative Universe,” 10th Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends.
  • 2014: Leuven, Belgium, Presenter: “From Epistles to Epistolary Fiction: Expanding Norman R. Petersen’s New Testament Sociology of Narrative Worlds,” International Society for Religion, Literature, and Culture 17.
  • 2014: Norton, MA, Presenter: “A Cosmic Shift in The Screwtape Letters,” Mythcon
  • 2014: Norton, MA, Panelist: “The Inklings and King Arthur,” Mythcon
  • 2013: Halifax, NS, Presenter: “‘Die Before You Die’: St. Paul’s Cruciformity in C.S. Lewis” at the Atlantic School of Theology C.S. Lewis Symposium.
  • 2012: “A Cosmic Find in a C.S. Lewis Archive,” UPEI Arts Colloquium Series. Re-presented at the UPEI Seniors College “Sharing Our Research” series in 2012 and 2013.
  • 2012: Taylor University, Upland, IN, Presenter: “The Pedagogical Value of The Screwtape Letters for a New Generation” at the 2012 Joint Meeting of the 8th Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends and the C.S. Lewis & the Inklings Society.
  • 2012: Kitchener-Waterloo, ON, Co-presenter: “La Negrita, La Comadre, and La Santita: The Enigmatic Identity of Santa Muerte” at Canadian Congress of the Humanities.
  • 2010: Charlottetown, PE, Presenter: “Was St. Paul Anti-Semitic? A Look at a Key Text” at the Invisible Scholars Lecture Series.

Recent Guest Lectures, Public Lectures, Talks, and Panels

  • 2020-21: Distinguished Lecturer in Romantic Theology in the Doctor in Theology and Ministry at Northwind Seminary. Lectures include “The Spiritual Theology of C.S. Lewis” and “Like the Falling of Small Stones: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Theology of the Small.”
  • 2020-21: Founding Producer and Host of the SSHRC-funded “MaudCast: The Podcast of the L.M. Montgomery Institute.”
  • 2021: Indianapolis, IN, Guest Speaker: “C.S. Lewis and L.M. Montgomery,” the C.S. Lewis Society of Central Indiana, Feb 19, 2021.
  • 2021: Texas, USA, Session Presentation: “Is C.S. Lewis too Sexy for America?,” TexMoot 2021: Signum University’s Fourth Annual Texas Literature & Language Symposium, Feb 13, 2021.
  • 2021: Charlottetown, PE, Guest Panelist: “Guest Discussion on Podcasting Women Writers,” for the English 2210 course, “Writing by Women” at the University of Prince Edward Island, Jan 19, 2018.
  • 2020: Expert Interview in documentary The Science Fiction Makers, part two of the Faith in Imagination Series, written and directed by Andrew Wall, a Refuge 31 and Vision Video production.
  • 2020: “War (What is it good for?)” discussion about The Screwtape Letters on the Pints with Jack Podcast, S04E09, Nov 3, 2020.
  • 2020: Charlottetown, PE, Guest Lecturer: “A Feminist Critique of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” for the Digital Humanities course “Putting Arts to Work” in the Applied Communication, Leadership, and Culture program at the University of Prince Edward Island, Nov 3, 2020.
  • 2020: Charlottetown, PE, Guest Lecturer: “The Pronominal Cluster ‘One’ in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” for the Digital Humanities course “Putting Arts to Work” in the Applied Communication, Leadership, and Culture program at the University of Prince Edward Island, Oct 20, 2020.
  • 2020: Signum University Open Classroom, Public Lecture and Discussion, “The Anatomy of the Vampire Myth,” Oct 13, 2020.
  • 2020: Signum University Thesis Theater, Facilitator: “Negotiated Symbiosis: Power, Identity, and Community in the Works of Octavia E. Butler,” A Signum Thesis Theatre on Octavia Butler’s speculative fiction by Jens Hieber, Oct 2, 2020.
  • 2020: “The Cosmic Preface” discussion about The Screwtape Letters and C.S. Lewis’ Ransom Cycle on the Pints with Jack Podcast “Skype Session” series, Sep 29, 2020.
  • 2020: Signum University, Moderator: “MootHub (Digital MythMoot),” attendee and academic conference moderator, Aug 6-9, 2020.
  • 2020: Signum University Thesis Theater, Facilitator: “The Lady and Our Lady: Galadriel as a ‘Reflexion’ of Mary,” A Signum Thesis Theatre on Tolkien & Catholicism by Mickey Corso,” by MA recipient Dr. Mickey Corso, with Dr. Sara Brown, Chair of Language and Literature, Signum University, Aug 3, 2020.
  • 2020: Signum University, Panelist: “Hugo Award 2020: Best Novel Roundtable,” panelist for The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, Jul 31, 2020.
  • 2020: “After Hours” discussion about Till We Have Faces on the Pints with Jack Podcast, S03E33, May 26, 2020.
  • 2020: Vancouver, BC, Guest Lecture: “Engaging Graduate Students Online,” Digital Lecture and Training Session for Professors, Regent College, Apr 21-22, 2020.
  • 2020: Charlottetown, PE, Guest Lecture: “Online Education During COVID-19,” Digital Lecture and Training Session for Teachers and Administrators, Immanuel Christian School, Mar 27, 2020.
  • 2019: Signum University Symposium, Host: “What is Signum Culture?”, with Sørina Higgins, Sparrow Alden, Mark Lachniet, Chair of Literature and Languages Sara Brown, and President Corey Olsen.
  • 2019: Mythgard Movie Club, Panelist: “18: The Fifth Element,” Mythgard Academy, Nov 21, 2019.
  • 2019: Signum University Open Classroom, Public Lecture: “Narnia and Friendship,” with Diana Pavlac Glyer and Jason Lepojärvi, Nov 12, 2019.
  • 2019: Signum University Open Classroom, Public Panel: “C.S. Lewis, Gender, and The Four Loves,” Sep 25, 2019.
  • 2019: Signum University Thesis Theater, Facilitator: “An Image of the Discarded: C. S. Lewis’s Use of the Medieval Model in His Planetary Fiction,” by MA recipient Adam Mattern, with Dr. David Downing, director of the Wade Center at Wheaton College, Mar 14, 2019.
  • 2018: Mythgard Movie Club, Panelist: “11: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” Mythgard Academy, Dec 14, 2018.
  • 2018: Oxford, UK, Guest Lecturer: “Dive: The Shape of the Cross in C.S. Lewis’ Writing,” the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society, Oct 23, 2018.
  • 2018: Signum University Thesis Theater, Facilitator: “J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sub-creative Vision: Exploring the Capacity and Applicability in Tolkien’s Concept of Sub-creation,” by MA recipient Rob Gosselin, Feb 26, 2018.
  • 2018: Charlottetown, PE, Guest Lecture: “Manuscript Discoveries in the Wardrobe: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Archival Research,” University of Prince Edward Island, Feb 6, 2018.
  • 2018: Signum University Symposium Roundtable, Panelist: “The Inklings and King Arthur,” with Corey Olsen (moderator), and Malcolm Guite, Signum University, Feb 5, 2018.
  • 2017: Mythgard Movie Club, Panelist: “01: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Mythgard Academy, Dec 5, 2017.
  • 2017: Signum University Symposium Roundtable, Panelist: “On Being a Public Intellectual,” with David Russell Mosley and Sørina Higgins, Signum University, Jan 24, 2017.
  • 2017: Signum University Symposium Roundtable, Panelist: “One Fantastic Rogue Beast,” with Kat Sas, Curtis Weyant, Kelly Orazi, and Emily Strand, Jan 6, 2017.
  • 2016: Signum University Pop Culture Conversation: “Stranger Things,” with President Corey Olsen, Signum University, Oct 31, 2016.
  • 2016: Charlottetown, PE, Public Talk: “Concerning Hobbits and How They Save the World,” The St Dunstan’s University Institute for Christianity and Culture “Theology on Tap,” Jan 28, 2016.
  • 2014: Charlottetown, PE, Guest Lecture: “How to Build A Fictional World,” PEI Seniors College.
  • 2012: Charlottetown, PE, Presentation: “A Cosmic Find in a C.S. Lewis Archive,” UPEI Arts Colloquium Series. Re-presented at the UPEI Seniors College “Sharing Our Research” series in 2012 and 2013.

Conference speaker, workshop leader, and panelist at more than ten other public forums, including being keynote speaker at Exalt 2006, Chautauqua 2016, Pursuit 2016, and convocation speaker for the 2015 graduation at Maritime Christian College.

Other Academic Activity

  • Founding Producer and Host of “MaudCast: The Podcast of the L.M. Montgomery Institute,” a SSHRC-funded project.
  • Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies.
  • MA thesis supervisor for five students at Signum University:
    • Jens Hieber, “’Accept the Risk’: Power Dynamics, Survival, and Healing Community through Symbiosis in Octavia Butler” (2020).
    • Mickey Corso, “The Ladies and Our Lady: Elbereth and Galadriel as “Reflexions” of Mary” (2020).
    • Adam Mattern, “An Image of the Discarded: C. S. Lewis’s Use of the Medieval Model in His Planetary Fiction” (2018).
    • Rob J. Gosselin, “J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sub-creative Vision: Exploring the Capacity and Applicability in Tolkien’s Concept of Sub-creation (2017).
    • Courtney Petrucci, “Abolishing Man in Other Worlds: Breaking and Recovering the Chain of Being in C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy” (2016).
  • Invited peer reviewer for Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Peter Lang Oxford, Humanities, The Canadian Journal of Education, Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies.
  • Member of Social Media Team for the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s 13th Biennial Conference, UPEI (2018).
  • Member of the re-imagined Inquiry Studies team at UPEI (2015-current).
  • External reader for three Honours theses at UPEI (English and Psychology).
  • Led four directed studies at UPEI in Biblical and Religious Studies.
  • S. Lewis research featured on the Essential C.S. Lewis podcast, the Pints with Jack podcast, In the Corner Back By the Woodpile, and several blogs.
  • Worked with scholars in significant ways to help with their books in the editing stage:
    • Gordon Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical‐Theological Study. Hendrickson Publishers, 2007.
    • Samuel Joeckel, The C.S. Lewis Phenomenon: Christianity and the Public Sphere. Mercer University Press, 2013.
    • Charles Williams and Sørina Higgins, Chapel of the Thorn: A Dramatic Poem. Apocryphile Press, 2014.

Select Academic Book Reviews

  • C.S. Lewis and the Christian Worldview by Michael L. Peterson, Literature and Theology (2020) fraa015.
  • The Fame of C. S. Lewis: A Controversialist’s Reception in Britain and America by Stephanie L. Derrick, Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal 13 (2019): 116-119.
  • The Poetic Edda, a new translation by Jeramy Dodds in Scrivener Creative Review 40 (April 2015): 44-49.
  • God and Charles Dickens: Rediscovering the Christian Voice of a Classic Author by Gary Colledge in Haddington House Journal 15 (2013): 129-130.
  • Doors in the Air: C. S. Lewis and the Imaginative World by Anna Slack, ed., in Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal 7-8 (2013-2014): 208-210.
  • Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint by R. Andrew Chesnut in Studies in Religion 42, no. 2 (June 2013): 264-265.
  • The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story by Craig G. Bartholomew & Michael W. Goheen in Stone-Campbell Journal 9, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 147-149.
  • A Brief Introduction to the New Testament by Bart Ehrman in Stone-Campbell Journal 8, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 137-139.
  • Narrative Dynamics in Paul by Bruce Longenecker in Ashland Theological Journal 35 (2003): 141-143.

Academic Honours and Grants

  • 2021: Winner of the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s 2020 Elizabeth Epperly Early Career Paper Award for my paper, “Making Friends with the Darkness: L.M. Montgomery’s Popular Theodicy in Anne’s House of Dreams” (award includes expedited peer review of the paper for possible peer-review publication in the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies, and complimentary full registration at the 2022 biennial conference).
  • 2018: The Inklings and King Arthur won the 2018 Mythopoeic Award for Inklings Scholarship.
  • 2018: UPEI Sessional Instructor Grant, $1000, funding toward the transcription and publication of C.S. Lewis’ incomplete novel, The Quest of Bleheris.
  • 2017: The Hessian Award for Excellence in Teaching (Sessional; $750 award).
  • 2014: UPEI Sessional Instructor Grant, $1000, travel to archive at the Bodleian, Oxford.
  • 2012: 2nd place paper prize in the Scholar/Faculty Writing Category at the Annual Meeting of the C.S. Lewis & the Inklings Society for “The Pedagogical Value of The Screwtape Letters for a New Generation.”
  • 2012: UPEI Sessional Instructor Grant, $1000, travel to archive at the Wade, Wheaton, IL.
  • 2011: Nominated for the Hessian Teaching Award at UPEI.
  • 2005: Winner of the Pacific Northwest Society of Biblical Literature prize for Graduate Student Paper for “Hoi Ioudaioi and Paul’s Polemic in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16.”

Other Relevant Experience

Researcher and Writer, Post Secondary Education, Government of PEI (2014-2018)

Relevant duties include:

  • Research and consultation for the directors of Post Secondary Education, Workforce Development, and the Maintenance Enforcement Program (Justice)
  • A departmental lead in policy and legislation writing
  • International student recruitment and supports
  • Briefing and consultation on higher education and labour development for Minister and Deputy Minister of Workforce and Advanced Learning
  • Support in facilitation of relationships between UPEI, the colleges, and the Province

Freelance teaching, writing and speaking (2000-present)

  • Maintain a popular literature and culture blog called “A Pilgrim in Narnia,” with more than 1,100,000 hits and 1,100 articles
  • Spoken internationally at conferences, colleges, camps, and churches
  • Columnist for Island Family Magazine (2009-2012)
  • Reviewer and writer for Living Light News (2000-2005)
  • Written dozens of journal articles, academic book reviews, and popular book reviews
  • Social network-engaged scholar with 9,500 followers on WordPress, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

EAL Teacher, Nagano, Japan (2001-2003)

Youth and Campus Worker, Lethbridge, AB (1997-2001)

Posted in News & Links, Original Research | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

The Romantic Theology Doctorate (DTM) at Northwind Seminary

Posted on March 5, 2021 by Brenton Dickieson

Hi friends. As some of you know, I do a lot of teaching online. Beyond my local teaching, I have been a distance education instructor in a variety of forms for 16 years now. Continuing a series from last year, I want to highlight some of the places where I do my teaching. This week I am looking at Northwind Seminary, where I am a Distinguished Lecturer in Romantic Theology.

Northwind Seminary is already unique in that it is a program led by a number of senior scholars in various theological fields offering relatively low-cost and culturally connected graduate degrees in concentrations like Spiritual Formation and Faith-Based Community Development (as well as some traditional disciplines). In 2020, they launched the Romantic Theology concentration within their Doctor in Theology and Ministry degree. The brainchild of Dr. Michael Christensen, who wrote an early and important book on C.S. Lewis and scripture, the DTM is a creative and engaging program meeting a critically important niche at a very high level. Moreover, they have attached a strong group of core faculty and lecturers, among the most engaged Inklings scholars I know. It is an opportunity for a new way of resourcing a generation of thinkers and leaders by being immersed in the work and thought of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams.

As a “Distinguished Lecturer,” I come into the program offering lectures like “The Spiritual Theology of C.S. Lewis” and “Like the Falling of Small Stones: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Theology of the Small.” As it is both culturally aware and a theological approach to Inklings studies–or better, an Inklingsistic approach to theology–I am pretty curious about the Romantic Theology program and excited by everything I hear about it, including a strong inaugural class. Perhaps you might be interested in extending your studies and looking at this unique doctoral program. 

You can read the original full press release for details in this PDF: Announcement of Romantic Theology.2020. You can check out their website at www.NorthwindSeminary.org or link to the Northwind Romantic Theology Facebook page where there are updates and announcements. And to hear a bit more in a personal way, check out this podcast discussion with Profs. Charlie Starr and Michael Christensen, hosted by William O’Flaherty at All About Jack. 

Doctoral Program in Romantic Theology
at http://www.NorthwindSeminary.org

The Doctor in Theology and Ministry degree (DTM) with a concentration in Romantic Theology at Northwind Seminary is believed to be the first of its kind in theological education. According to Professor Christensen, “Romantic Theology represents as cross-current of Theology and Literature focused on creative imagination as a portal of divine revelation. Its romantic and religious themes foster spiritual formation and ministry applications. The spirited collaboration of the Inkling writers produced a body of work worthy of the name.”

“A romantic theologian does not mean one who is romantic about theology, but one who is theological about romance, one who considers the theological implications of those experiences which are called romantic.”—C. S. Lewis in Essays Presented to Charles Williams

The Romantic Theology concentration offers life-long learners a formative way to read or review the creative works of the Oxford Inklings, do original research in the field of Inklings Studies, and contribute the future of Romantic Theology. The program features six core courses followed by an Oxford Pilgrimage to visit historic sites, meet other Inklings scholars, and do portfolio research in University libraries supervised by a faculty mentor at Northwind. Visiting Faculty and Distinguished Lecturers (noted Inklings scholars) serve as faculty mentors, discussion leaders, and doctoral committee members. The program is designed to be completed in two years.

​Learn more about Romantic Theology as a discipline in this blog post from Center Director Michael J. Christensen.

Posted in News & Links | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

“A Very Mean Rank”: William Shakespeare, Brian Grazer, and Biographies that are Too Good to be True

Posted on March 2, 2021 by Brenton Dickieson

As background to my year of reading Shakespeare (one play a month), I am reading Peter Ackroyd’s biography of Shakespeare. As in all of Akroyd’s historical writing, it is accessible, thoughtful, and remarkably quick-moving for a long book. He writes little vignettes of history–as if each chapter is a 1- to 25-page write-up of various research folders that work as stories on their own. These little notes could be based on the church records of a traitorous priest, conversations about the Domesday Book, geological discoveries in a particular locale, detailed close-reading of a poem, farmer’s almanac-type speculations about the season when rabbits are in heat or elms can be transplanted, the very fine research of a scholar of interest, historical notes about how paving stones are placed in the high street, testimonies from the grandson of a ferrier who knew someone of import, and, occasionally, the actual diaries and state records we would hope are part of historical writing. These notes–against all feeling of probability in the midst of the tale–when strung together in a usually quite-long book ultimately tell a vivid story about a person or time.

So, in Ackroyd’s biography of William Shakespeare, an image of the bard is refining in my mind–or Ackroyd’s “bard,” in any case.

One of the open questions for me is how Shakespeare caught his break in the theatre business of London. Ackroyd quotes a well-known story about Shakespeare from an early biography:

“he made his first Acquaintance in the Play-house … in a very mean Rank.”

“A Very Mean Rank” is an image that resonates through the ages, this (literary) rags-to-riches story that we love to tell even now. Shakespeare was on the edge of being wealthy growing up, well-connected, and had received a quality though basic education, so I think we can overread this David & Goliath tale. Many historians and biographers have imagined Shakespeare entering the theatre as “a prompter, a call-boy, a porter or a patcher-up of other men’s plays,” or even a young actor (Ackroyd, Shakespeare, 153).

But there are other roles to be had in the theatre. How many great actresses began as cigarette girls, ushers, and stand-ins, only to find their way to the silver screen? According to Ackroyd, a Shakespeare family member believed that Shakespeare caught his break when he was suddenly holding the horse of a gentleman and the accident itself–no doubt combined with Shakespeare’s personality–lead to the poet’s first patron. Samuel Johnson also tells a similar story, but arguing that a late-teen/early-20s Shakespeare paid his way by working in the livery, holding horses for the wealthy theatre-goers during the plays. Apparently,

his first expedient was to wait at the door of the play-house, and hold the horses of those who had no servants, that they might be ready again after the performance. In this office he became so conspicuous for his care and readiness, that in a short time every man as he alighted called for Will Shakespear (Ackroyd, Shakespeare, 154).

Ackroyd admits that the story seems “too good to be true.” It is certainly the story I would use if I were writing a biopic or fictionalized biography.

However, there is a pretty cool parallel that pops into my mind that makes the improbable more than possible and makes a pretty interesting link to today’s dramatic world.

In this King’s College (London) lecture, Yale scholar David Kastan is arguing, essentially, that it is we who create Shakespeare, that his biography is shaped and reshaped generations after his relatively obscure life because it is we who find him compelling. In Shakespeare’s own generation, as important as his plays were, he would be a relatively hidden figure. Prof. Kastan makes the comparison with a Hollywood film-writer. Unless we are experts or super-fans, we do not know, usually, who “wrote” a film. And when we do, we are usually wrong, Kastan says, because there is an entire team of people who pull together the script. So with Shakespeare, who was essential to his age in terms of literary production, but inessential in terms of the dramatic experience of the audience.

Ackroyd would disagree with much of what Kastan has said. Still, it is the link to Hollywood that makes me think of Brian Grazer. Sometimes on his own, but often with co-writer and co-producer with Ron Howard, Grazer has created some of the most important films and television shows to come from Hollywood. As my little poster montage below shows, there are some stinkers. And the greatest epics of speculative fiction in this generation–the fantasy, SF, and comic-based epics–are not in his field. But Brian Grazer is one of the greatest storytellers of this generation with films and TV shows like Curious George, The Doors, Lie to Me, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, 8 Mile, Splash, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, 24, Frost/Nixon, and Empire. According to the scrupulous editors of Wikipedia, as the founder of Imagine Entertainment,

“Grazer’s films and TV shows have been nominated for a total of 43 Academy Awards, and 198 Emmys. At the same time, his movies have generated over $15 billion in worldwide theatrical, music, and video grosses.”

True, I don’t think we can say of Brian Grazer that he is a “Shakespeare” in the sense of a once-in-a-lifetime genius that transcends and transforms an entire culture. However, if Prof. Kastan is right, we cannot know who those will be in our age, and Grazer is among the most important visual storytellers we have in our midst.

Moreover, he has his own stableboy story worth telling, captured in a couple of interviews and his book, A Curious Mind.

Beyond being a Hollywood producer, Grazer is widely known as someone who can make you tell your story. In the first video below, then Disney CEO Robert Iger interviews Brian Grazer about his “curiosity conversations”–a habit that Grazer developed to have organic, open, and generative conversations with interesting people with the hope of sparking new ideas and new connections. In the second video below, Brian Grazer and Malcolm Gladwell interview each other about books they had coming out in 2015. Grazer’s book, A Curious Mind, includes many of these stories of meeting celebrities, royalty, geniuses, and villains in the search for getting their story.

In these two interviews and the book, Grazier relates how he managed to find himself in Hollywood. He was in law school–despite having been a terrible student with dyslexia–and not looking forward to a legal career. He was in LA, leaning out the window and watching the street and wondering how he could find his way into the film industry. He heard a couple of guys talking on the street below, one of them who was a bicycle messenger for Warner Brothers, delivering contracts and the like between studios. The messenger talked about how his job was great, meeting famous people and working just a few hours and living in the company invisibly for the rest of the time. Seizing the opportunity, Brian Grazer went to Warner Bros. and told them he was the new legal messenger. They never questioned it, and he found that he was the new law clerk of one of Hollywood’s leading firms.

From that point, Grazer took advantage of his position. Instead of just dropping of contacts to be signed, he insisted that he had to see the actor, writer, or director in person to get the signatures. From these meetings, he leveraged time for conversation, where he gained advice and a few connections. At one point, he convinced someone to let him use a top-floor empty office to organize his materials between deliveries–giving him an executive-level office and access to the leading visionaries of Warner Brothers. Eventually, he met Ron Howard and went on to make Nightshift–a crazy romp with a kind of cult following in the ’80s–and then the breakout quirky romcom Splash, with Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. Eventually, he went on to receive four Academy Awards, including best picture for A Beautiful Mind, a gorgeous and alluring film. The slate of brilliant stories that Grazer tells of the people he has met is only exceeded by his own success as a filmmaker and TV producer. And now he is also the NY Times bestselling author of A Curious Mind, where he draws into a life of curiosity conversations throughout the world.

I suppose today’s livery boy equivalent would be a parking attendant. But Brian Grazer’s clerk-to-Hollywood bigwig story has interesting parallels with Shakespeare’s. More than anything, it shows me how a particular kind of personal ambition combined with energetic genius can not only create space for good art but also give the genius a chance to leverage opportunities for success. It could be the stable-boy Shakespeare story is too good to be true. As we see in Brian Grazer’s life, however, it is far from impossible.

Posted in Thoughtful Essays | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

On the Nobody Somebody Has Inside: C.S. Lewis and a Post About Bullying For Pink Shirt Day #pinkshirt

Posted on February 24, 2021 by Brenton Dickieson

it even looks evilBy all accounts, the famous children’s author C.S. Lewis was bullied badly in the English private school that he was subjected to as a child. His first school, Wynyard, had a bully as a headmaster. Robert Capron–nicknamed “Oldie” by Lewis and his brother, Warren–was selected to be their father, Albert Lewis, to mentor these future authors. Walter Hooper, the literary biographer of Lewis, said,

“of all the schools in the British Isles [Albert] seems to have chosen the very worst.”

Oldie was actually quite generous with the Lewis boys compared with some of the other children. It seemed that Warren escaped most of Oldie’s brutality because,

“he amused the headmaster who even made something of a pet of him.”

With other children the headmaster was brutal; his wife and daughters were absolutely terrified of him, and students fled from his presence. His brutality led to the preying of older students upon the younger or weaker ones—C.S. Lewis included. He would write to his father, begging to be released from his prison. How strongly did Lewis feel about Wynyard? In his autobiography, he called it Belsen, named after the Nazi concentration camp.

C.S. Lewis’ time at Wynyard was short-lived, however, as Oldie was charged with brutality and died soon after in an insane asylum. But Lewis moved on to another school where the student bullying was formalized in a class-based hierarchy, where the “Bloods” ruled the hallways with a system of peer-led torture called “fagging.” Biographer Alan Jacobs writes:

The fagging system was one wing of the great edifice of Bloodery. Its rules were simple: non-Bloods had to perform whatever services Bloods required of them: shoe shining, clothes brushing, housekeeping, tea making. It was never, ever possible for an underling to plead any excuse, and refusal would have been repaid by something far worse than public caning. Curiously, the one place of refuge was the library—one could not be fagged there—so Jack’s [C.S. Lewis’] great ambition on almost every day of school was to make it to the library before being called upon by a Blood in need. And of course, there was no place he would rather have been than the library, even if there had been no fagging and no Bloods. But he rarely got there (The Narnian, 57).

C.S. Lewis was a social outcast and a victim of school-sanctioned bullying. He eventually became ill and was pulled from school, spending several glorious months doing what he liked to do best: reading by himself, left alone to his imagination–an imagination that would later give birth to Narnia.

We can see the impact the bullying had on Lewis in the chapter in Surprised by Joy called “Concentration Camp.” What is remarkable, for me, though, is how little it seems to affect his adult life. Lewis was placed on the academic “outs” his entire adult life, given the burden of being a Tutor instead of a Professor at Oxford because he committed the great sins of converting to Christianity and then writing to the general public about it. He was accused of fobbing off to a popular crowd with his kids’ books and there was no room at Oxford for dime-store academics who didn’t know their place.

This administrative outing—Lewis was passed up for promotion three times—meant a great deal of extra work for far less money for him. Yet he said he benefited greatly from it, and when he took a Chair at Cambridge he kept his residence in Oxfordshire. For him, the pain caused by his academic bullying was turned into a great benefit. Moreover, while counselling a fan about a bully affecting her, Lewis seems very philosophical about it:

I am very puzzled by people … who are just nasty. I find it easier to understand the great crimes, for the raw material of them exists in us all; the mere disagreeableness which seems to spring from no recognisable passion is mysterious…. This makes me think it really comes from inner insecurity—a dim sense that one is Nobody, a strong determination to be Somebody, and a belief that this can be achieved by arrogance…. (A bully in an Elizabethan play, having been sat on by a man he dare not fight, says “I’ll go home and beat all my servants”).

But I mustn’t encourage you to go on thinking about her [the bully]: that, after all, is almost the greatest evil nasty people can do to us—to become an obsession, to haunt our minds (Letters to an American Lady, 27; March 10, 1954).

A Nobody with a strong determination to be Somebody. For Lewis, these people are not worth consideration and their actions are not worth meditating upon. “A brief prayer for them, and then away to other subjects” is how it should be dealt with.

I, myself, was never much been bullied as a child—I think because I could talk my way out of most situations. Junior High was miserable in general, but mostly because I was awkward, poor, unattractive, and disinterested. I humorously averted a fistfight in the fifth grade and faced an after-school mob with a grin in high school, but, for whatever reason, I was entertaining enough to avoid most bullies, or uninteresting enough to avoid the rest.

As an adult, though, bullies have appeared in my life with remarkable consistency. They take a much different form now: volunteers leveraging for power, humour taken too far, the invitation to only the right people, terse emails where the manipulation is only too subtle. But the bullies are there, nonetheless, trading prepubescent black eyes for intellectual office barbs.

I see the Nobody that screams in rage inside these bullies, as well as the Somebody that creeps up in ambition—I’ve been able to make the same assessment as C.S. Lewis did. What I seem unable to do, when faced by that whispered wrath of the Other, is follow Lewis’ advice to the American Lady and just go on to other things. Instead, the bully’s words stick close upon me, even years later. I check myself, second guess myself, and experience a haunting dread until… well, until it’s no longer a problem, some days or weeks later. I feel the threat of the bully—even more keenly than the bully itself—in the hollow echo of my stomach or the sleep-dry nights. This Nobody that in my brightest moments I can work beside or laugh with–even pray for or pity–becomes an obsession—just like Lewis warned his friend against.

Why do I let the threat of his action bother me? Why am I manipulated by her guilt? I think it is because I share that essential self-evaluation with the bully: he thinks he is really Nobody; well, so do I. Instead of lashing out at others, though, I crumble at their disdain.

At the bottom of it, I believe, we share the same kind of pride, or lack of modesty, or self-obsession. I allow the bully into the very heart of my insecurity, giving her the ability to crush me—perhaps without her even knowing. For the bully as for me, we are both haunted with Nobodyness. As I submit to “the greatest evil nasty people can do to us,” most tragically, I forget who I am called to be.

And in this, I suspect I am not alone.

This post is rewritten from one on August 15, 2011. If you check out pinkshirtday.ca, you can read the story about Nova Scotia’s David Shepherd, Travis Price, and others, who transformed a moment with a kid being bullied for wearing a pink shirt into a global movement against bullying.

Posted in Reflections | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments