IQ 4: AY24-25 Fellows, C. S. Lewis in Belfast, Inklings in Ukraine
Inklings Quarterly
August 20, 2024
Introducing the AY24-25 Inklings Project Fellows
Thank you to everyone who applied for this year’s Inklings Project Fellowship. We were so grateful for and impressed by the large number of wonderful applicants we received this year. We are thrilled to introduce our AY24-25 Inklings Project Fellows. Drawn from thirteen different colleges/universities, these faculty are teaching Inklings courses that are innovative, engaging, and joyful at their core. You can read more about this year’s fellow cohort and their courses in the “Fellow Spotlight” sections of future editions of the Inklings Quarterly.
Fellow Spotlight
Dr. Yuliia Vintoniv, AY24-25 Inklings Project Fellow
Dr. Yuliia Vintoniv, one of this year’s Inklings Project Fellows, recently wrote an article entitled “C. S. Lewis & Maksym Kryvtsov: The Experience of War and Godforsakenness” for the McGrath Institute’s Church Life Journal.
Click here to read Dr. Vintoniv’s article about how the poem “Death in Battle” by C. S. Lewis and an untitled poem by Maksym Kryvtsov, a fallen Ukrainian soldier, “deepen our understanding of the profound human struggle with Godforsakeness and death during wartime.”
“What follows delves into the realm of war poetry, weaving a tapestry around the themes of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It embarks on a journey to unravel the profound experiences of godforsakenness and the embrace of death during wartime.”
From a Fellow
Dr. Sharon Jones, AY23-24 Fellow | Discovering C. S. Lewis in Belfast
“A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home” as our Lord reminded us. Until recent decades, this may well have been the case with C. S. Lewis and Ireland.
By way of explanation, let me share a personal story. This summer, curious about my family tree, I learned that my paternal great-grandfather served in the Great War. I was surprised to discover that his name is included in the list of the fallen on the war memorial in Newtownards, County Down. In fact, my great-grandfather had returned to Ireland from the front, and married my great-grandmother in 1919, but in May 1928 he died of a disease caught in the trenches. His life came to an end in Craigavon Hospital, in Strandtown, Belfast, opened in 1917, and situated on the very same street as C. S. Lewis’s family home, Little Lea.
It is fair to say then, that for a teenager like me growing up in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s, C. S. Lewis was a local writer, as well as globally known. I was a bookish child, yet until my aunt gave me a copy of Prince Caspian, gifted to her by her American boyfriend at the time, I had scarcely heard of Narnia. Although I studied English Literature throughout high school, I read none of Lewis’s work in that context.
In 1989 I left Northern Ireland to read Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge University. It was on the lovely wooden shelves of the library at Girton College that I encountered Lewis’s The Allegory of Love. I remember cherishing the opportunity to read this book, an important academic source when writing a paper on courtly love in the medieval Occitan literature of Southern France. I was aware by then that Lewis was a Christian thinker, but still had no idea that he was Irish, and much less that he was from Belfast.
After university I returned to live and teach in Northern Ireland. An esteemed Bible teacher among young people in our church congregations at that time, Derek Bingham, valued Lewis’s work highly and encouraged us to read his books. And years later, my friend, Northern Irish artist and sculptor Ross Wilson, whom Derek Bingham had encouraged and mentored, shared with us the unforgettable story of his experiences, many challenging, in creating his inspiring work The Searcher, appropriately positioned beside a public library near Lewis’s family home.
All this to say that in recent years I have had some catching up to do in getting to know Lewis and his writing, and in coming to understand him as both an Irish writer and an Ulsterman. I made it a personal goal to learn as much as possible and to share my journey with my students. For Lewis has much to teach current generations in this city of his birth, as well as globally: in terms of history, the environment, war, the imagination; intellectually, morally and spiritually.
Joining the inaugural cohort of Inklings Fellows at the McGrath Institute of the University of Notre Dame has been the privilege of a lifetime for me, and one for which I am deeply grateful. Being part of this interdisciplinary, international community of educators has provided me, at a timely juncture in my career, with both an impetus to keep striving for excellence and a revitalizing spring of encouragement. This year I have designed two new courses on C. S. Lewis’s work: firstly ‘Learning with Lewis’ for student teachers in my higher education setting at Stranmillis, a university college of Queen’s University Belfast. And secondly ‘Worlds of Adventure with C. S. Lewis’, for adult learners at Belfast School of Theology where this incoming academic year I will deliver a third new course, ‘Stepping into Narnia’. In addition, I have continued my research, most recently giving a comparative paper ‘Poets in portrait: Regarding C. S. Lewis and Seamus Heaney’ at the American Conference of Irish Studies.
One of the most memorable teaching moments this year was delivering a digitally achieved live interview with Professor Kristen Page of Wheaton College Illinois, discussing her book The Wonders of Creation: Learning Stewardship from Narnia and Middle-earth (IVP Academic, 2022). I enjoy such international collaboration in both teaching and research and am happy to discuss potential opportunities with readers who may be interested.
It is my belief that young people should have the opportunity to explore and value our local literary heritage, and I am determined that Lewis is given his rightful place among other great writers whose roots are found in our little corner of the globe. The opportunity to inspire my students to engage with his work, and to teach it in turn in their own classrooms in Ireland and across the globe, is a great one.
Fellow Spotlight
Dr. Nataliya Pratsovyta, AY23-24 Fellow | The Inklings in Ukraine
Photo of Dr. Nataliya Pratsovyta with her students in Lviv, Ukraine
Dr. Nataliya Pratsovyta, an AY23-24 Inklings Project Fellow, is a Docent of Philology at the Ukrainian Catholic University and is currently a Fellow at the University of Warwick. This past spring, she taught a course entitled "Christian Tradition in British Literature. Oxford Inklings: Faith, Fairy Stories, and War" online to her students at the Ukrainian Catholic University.
The course served as an introduction to the Inklings, in particular J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, who have become more popular as new translations of their works become available to the Ukrainian audience. Another important factor that brings these authors closer to Ukrainian readers is the current situation in the country: as Dr. Pratsovyta has discovered, the war in Ukraine draws many parallels to Tolkien’s fantasy world. Because of this, one objective of her course was to help students explore the metaphorical relationship of the works of the Inklings to the current events in the Ukraine.
Her course also focused on the potential of fantasy literature to engage profound moral and ethical questions, such as those about I-Other relationship, forgiveness, and heroism in their relationship to the Christian faith. These course themes were reflected in the topics that students chose for their group presentations, such as “Fantasy as a Way to Talk About Existential Problems.”
Dr. Emma Mason's lecture "The Inklings: Faith and Literature"
With the grant she received as part of the Inklings Project Fellowship, Dr. Pratsovyta invited three guest speakers to her classroom. Each of the scholar’s work is either specialized in one of the Inklings or closely intersects with them.
Dr. Emma Mason, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK gave a lecture entitled "The Inklings: Faith and Literature."
Dr. Dr. Olexandra Filonenko's lecture “‘You shall not pass!’: Tolkienian References in (Social) Media Discourse of the Russo-Ukrainian War”
Dr. Olexandra Filonenko, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany and Petro Mohyla Black Sea University, Mykolayiv, Ukraine gave a lecture entitled“‘You shall not pass!’: Tolkienian References in (Social) Media Discourse of the Russo-Ukrainian War.”
Dr. Yuliia Vintoniv's lecture "C. S. Lewis"
Dr. Yuliia Vintoniv, University of Notre Dame and Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv, Ukraine gave a lecture entitled "C. S. Lewis."
As Dr. Pratsovyta reported, “These lectures have been a great experience for our students…Also, during the Spring break I was able to travel to Ukraine for a short time, and we met in person with the students at the University cafe and had coffee and dessert together. I am grateful for the support of the Inklings Project, which made these wonderful experiences for our students possible.”
Brown Alumni Magazine Features C. S. Lewis Course
The C. S. Lewis course that planted the seed for the Inklings Project was featured in a recent edition of the Brown Alumni Magazine. Click this link to read “Beyond Narnia: A popular course on C. S. Lewis is taught by a trio of deep-thinking MDs” and discover how Aslan is on the move on Brown University’s campus.
Quarterly Highlights
Inspiration: “The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the ‘veil of familiarity’…By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality, we rediscover it…By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly.” – C. S. Lewis, in his review on The Lord of the Rings
Resource: Looking to learn more about the broader group of Inklings authors? Visit the “Authors” pages on the Marion E. Wade Center’s website for short biographies and other related resources.
Event: Almost 50 years ago, the American Tolkien Society named September 22, the birthday of both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Hobbit Day. To celebrate Hobbit Day, Marquette Libraries' Department of Special Collections will be holding a public showing of selected original manuscripts of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on Friday, September 20, 2024 at the Raynor Library in Milwaukee. Attendance at each event is limited to 50 persons. Advance registration is required. Click here to learn more.
Interested in supporting the Inklings Project?
The Inklings Project exists because of the generosity of individuals. To make a one-time or recurring donation to the Inklings Project, please visit giving.nd.edu/inklings, or call 574-631-7164.
The University of Notre Dame is a 501(c) (3) tax exempt nonprofit corporation.
For past issues of the Inklings Quarterly, visit www.inklingsproject.org/quarterly.
