C. S. Lewis Study and Speakers
Please join us in January for a special lecture series on the life and works of C. S. Lewis.
This is a 3-part seminar on Sunday evenings in The Sanctuary from 5-6 PM beginning on January 8, 2012. This series promises to be entertaining as well as enlightening. It is the perfect “pick-me-up” after the holidays and the “cold and gloomy outside and there’s nothing to do” month of January. We are privileged to have three speakers who are accomplished experts in their fields lead us through this study of C.S. Lewis’ works.
January 8 –Who was C. S. Lewis?
Nina Rach, speaker and church member, will give an overview of the life of C. S. Lewis and his journey to Christianity. Nina is a member of our church and a member of the C.S. Lewis Society.
January 22 – Diabolic Devotions:
The Subverted Spirituality of The Screwtape Letters
Andrew Lazo, speaker and professor. Andrew Lazo holds an M.A. in English from Rice University where he was Jacob K. Javits Fellow in the Humanities. He holds a B.A. (with Honors) in English with minors in Latin and Medieval Studies and a Post-baccalaureate in Classics from the UC Davis. He is currently completing a Master of Arts in Teaching. Having taught courses on Mythology and on C. S. Lewis at the University of Houston, Clear Lake for several years and working as a Kaplan Premiere Verbal Tutor, Andrew currently teaches English at St. Thomas High School in Houston. Andrew has published several articles and book reviews on C. S. Lewis and other Inklings and has co-edited Mere Christians: Inspiring Stories of Encounters with C. S. Lewis (Baker Books, 2009).
January 29 – The Psychology of Sin: Wrestling with Heaven and Hell
Dr. Louis Markos, speaker and professor. Louis Markos is a Professor in English and Scholar in Residence at Houston Baptist University; he holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities. He received his B.A. in English and History from Colgate University (Hamilton, NY; summa cum laude) and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI). While at the University of Michigan, he specialized in British Romantic Poetry (his dissertation was on Wordsworth), Literary Theory, and the Classics. At Houston Baptist University (where he has taught since 1991), he offers courses in all three of these areas, as well as in Victorian Poetry and Prose, Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose, C. S. Lewis, Mythology, Epic, and Film (classics, Hitchcock, Capra, Hollywood Studios, musicals, etc.). In 2009, he began to teach classes on Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages for the Honors College.
He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and has won Teaching Awards at both the University of Michigan and Houston Baptist University. In 1994, he was selected to attend an NEH Summer Institute on Virgil’s Aeneid. In addition to presenting several papers at scholarly conferences, Dr. Markos speaks widely all over the United States, generally on topics related to C. S. Lewis, but embracing more widely science, the arts, education, the new age, and apologetics. He also speaks widely on various aspects of ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and Dante.
In the publishing arena, Dr. Markos is the author of From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics (InterVarsity Press, 2007), Pressing Forward: Alfred, Lord Tennyson and the Victorian Age (Sapientia Press, 2007), and Lewis Agonistes: How C. S. Lewis can Train us to Wrestle with the Modern and Postmodern World (Broadman & Holman, 2003). He has also produced two lecture series with the Teaching Company, an organization that hires accomplished professors from around the country to put together lecture series (in both video and audio formats) on such topics as philosophy, the Bible, literature, and history. Most series consist of 12 or 24 30-minute lectures and are accompanied by a detailed course book that includes complete outlines for each lecture, a timeline, biographical notes, a glossary, and an annotated bibliography. His first series (24 lectures; 1999) offers a 2500-year survey of literary theory: From Plato to Postmodernism: Understanding the Essence of Literature and the Role of the Author. His second series (12 lectures; 2000) offers an overview and analysis of all the major works of his favorite author: The Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis. He has also contributed three lectures to an 84-lecture “mega-series”: Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition.
Suggested (but not necessary) Readings: The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.
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