Keynote speakers

Prof. Dr. Alister Edgar McGrath

With a recorded special keynote address for the official opening.

Professor Alister McGrath is a prominent Northern Irish theologian, intellectual historian, scientist, and Christian apologist. He holds three doctorates from the University of Oxford: a doctoral degree in molecular biophysics, a Doctor of Divinity degree in theology, and a Doctor of Letters degree in intellectual history.

He currently holds the Andreas Idreos Professorship in Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, and he is a Fellow of Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford and is Professor of Divinity at Gresham College. He was previously Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at King's College London and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture, Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, and was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. McGrath has also taught at Cambridge University and is a Teaching Fellow at Regent College.

Prof. Dr. Paul Stuart Fiddes

Dr. Paul Stuart Fiddes is an English theologian and novelist. He is Professor of Systematic Theology in the University of Oxford, Principal Emeritus and Senior Research Fellow of Regent's Park College, Oxford (where he is director of the Project for the Study of Love in Religion), and a former Chairman of the Oxford Faculty of Theology. He took first-class degrees in English Literature (1968) and in Theology (1970) at the University of Oxford (St. Peter’s College), Followed by a PhD from Oxford (1970) and was awarded the D.D. of the University of Oxford for published work in 2004. He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Bucharest, and Honorary Fellow of St. Peter’s College, Oxford. He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2020.

Dr. Douglas Hedley

Dr. Douglas Hedley is a Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, Fellow at Clare College of the Cambridge University. He studied Philosophy and Theology at Keble College, Oxford, and in 1992 earned a doctorate in the Philosophy Faculty at the University of Munich under the supervision of Werner Beierwaltes. In 1993 he was awarded a post-doctoral Fellowship by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeindschaft for work on seventeenth-century theology and the Cambridge Platonists. In 1995 he taught at Nottingham University and in 1996 moved to the Divinity Faculty in Cambridge. Douglas Hedley is also co-chair of the Platonism and Neoplatonism section of the American Academy of Religion and a past Secretary of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion and past President of the European Society for the Philosophy of Religion. Professor Douglas Hedley is Principal Investigator on the AHRC grant The Cambridge Platonists at the Origins of Enlightenment: texts, debates, and reception (1650-1730).

Dr. David Mcllroy

Dr. David McIlroy is a barrister at the English Bar. He is Global Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame (USA) in England and a Visiting Professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London. He holds a Master’s degrees in law from the Universities of Cambridge and Toulouse and a PhD in theology from the University of Wales. He is the author of four books, including The End of Law: How Law’s Claims relate to Law’s Aims (2019) as well as numerous chapters in books and articles. He has an international reputation in his research areas of banking law and the theology and philosophy of law.

Plenary Speakers

Dr. Paul E. Michelson

Dr. Paul E. Michelson is a Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at Huntington University, where he began teaching in 1974. He has been three times a Fulbright fellow in Romania (1971-1973, 1982-1983, 1989-1990); he holds the Ph.D. from Indiana University. His areas of interest and expertise include historiography, Romanian history in the 19th-21st centuries, Totalitarian and Post-totalitarian societies, the History of Venice, and the work of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.

He served as secretary of the Society for Romanian Studies for nearly 40 years and was secretary of the Conference on Faith and History for ten. His book, Romanian Politics, 1859-1871: From Prince Cuza to Prince Carol (1998) was selected by CHOICE MAGAZINE as an Outstanding Academic Book for 1998 and was awarded the 2000 Bălcescu Prize for History by the Romanian Academy. Recent publications include "’To Promote Professional Study, Criticism, and Research on All Aspects of Romanian Culture and Civilization’: The Society for Romanian Studies at Forty," Balkanistica, Vol. 29 (2016); “Romania and World War I, 1914-1918: An Introductory Survey,” Revue Roumaine d’Histoire, Vol. 55 (2016); "George Enescu in Wartime Iași, 1916-1919," Anuarul Institutului de Istorie A. D. Xenopol, Vol. 53 (2016); "C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Esemplastic Friendship," Inklings Forever, Vol. 10 (2017); "The History of Romanian Evangelicals, 1918-1989: A Bibliographical Excursus," Arhiva Moldaviae,, Vol. 9 (2017); "Inklings at war. J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and the Crucible of World War I," Christian History, Nr. 121 (March 2017); and "Greater Romania and the Post-World War New Normal," in Victor Voicu, ed., Lucrările conferinței internaționale România și evenimentele istorice din perioadă 1914-1920. Desăvârșirea Marii Uniri și întregirea României (București: Editura Academiei Română, 2018). He recently delivered keynote addresses at the Romanian Academy's 1918 commemoration in September 2018 and at the Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj 1918 conference in October 2018. He is currently finishing a history of Romanian historiography, 1880-1940, and continues to work on a history of the Romanian 1848.

Dr. K. Alan Snyder

Dr. K. Alan Snyder is a professor of history who has taught at Christian universities for more than thirty years. He is the author of five books, with a sixth book currently set for publication. His teaching emphasis has been on American religious, intellectual, and political history. Over the last decade, Dr. Snyder has shifted that emphasis to an in-depth study of C. S. Lewis. The first fruit of that new emphasis was America Discovers C. S. Lewis: His Profound Impact, published in 2016. His next book, along with co-author Jamin Metcalf, is entitled Many Times & Many Places: C. S. Lewis and the Value of History, has been published this year.

Dr. Bruce A. Little

Dr. Bruce A. Little, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (2018) where he served as full-time faculty from 2001 to 2018 during which time he also served as the director of the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture (2008-2013). He continues to serve as the director of the Francis A. Schaeffer Collection at Southeastern and the Francis Schaeffer Society. Since 1995, Dr. Little has given lectures or taught in universities and various other venues in America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa on subjects such as philosophy, Christian faith and culture, and the problem of evil. He is the author of several books, editor of two books, and a contributor to several edited volumes the last being Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique, eds David L. Allen & Steve W. Lemke (2022). He is the author of numerous articles published in academic journals both in America and Europe. He lives in Maine with his wife Nancy.

Dr. Charles E. White

Dr. Charles White is professor of Christian Thought & History at Spring Arbor University in Michigan, USA. He also teaches in the Open Christian Academy in Ukraine. Harvard, Cambridge, and Boston universities have contributed to his education. He has written two books and a score of academic articles. Bible translation is one of his passions, and he has worked on twenty-five of the twenty-seven New Testament books in seven different languages. He has taught environmentalists in Michigan, physicians in Mexico, pastors in Canada, university students in England, Bible college students in Australia, Islamic Studies majors in Nigeria, evangelists in India, missionaries in the Philippines and Rwanda, church planters in Iraq, ministers in Jordan, disciples in Ethiopia, and college professors in Poland, Romania, and Switzerland.

Dr. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson

Dr. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson is a George MacDonald scholar who lives in the Ottawa Valley, Canada. She lectures internationally on MacDonald, the 19th century, the Inklings, and Faith & the Arts. Co-editor of Informing the Inklings (and forthcoming sequel), she has published many chapters and articles in the field, and appears in the documentary, The Fantasy Makers (featured at the 2018 Lewis and Friends Colloquium). Currently completing a book on MacDonald, she also authored the Forewords and Afterwords to the Romanian translations of MacDonald’s The Golden Key and Barfield’s The Child & the Giant. She is on the Advisory Board of Inklings journal VII, a founding Board Member of the C.S. Lewis & Kindreds Society of Eastern & Central Europe, and co-chair of the George MacDonald Society. She directs Linlathen – a Theology & Arts conference and lecture series based in rural Ontario. Passionate about integrating ecological care and local community with academia, she occasionally speaks for and partners with A Rocha, a faith-inspired network of environmental organizations. She lives on a farm, loves enticing academic colleagues into the outdoors, and is always up for a serious game of scrabble.

Rev. Andrew Lazo

The Reverend Andrew Lazo is an internationally-known speaker and writer specializing on C. S. Lewis and the Inklings. He earned a B.A. with Honors from U. C. Davis, an M.A. in Modernist British Literature from Rice University, and an M.Div. with Honors from Virginia Theological Seminary. He serves as a Distinguished Lecturer in the Romantic Theology program at Northwind Theological Seminary while concurrently pursuing his doctorate in that program.

He is a frequent speaker around the U.S. and U.K. and has written several articles on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. In 2009, he published Mere Christians: Inspiring Encounters with C.S. Lewis. In 2013 he transcribed, edited, and published a previously unknown book by C. S. Lewis, the groundbreaking “Early Prose Joy,” Lewis’s very first spiritual autobiography.

For nearly twenty years, Andrew has been researching and writing a long-awaited study of Till We Have Faces, making groundbreaking discoveries all along the way. The results of his ongoing research have led him to give keynote talks at a number of events; Andrew served as a plenary speaker at the C.S. Lewis Foundation’s Summer Institute in Oxford and Cambridge. He continues to write, teach, and speak on Lewis and related topics and authors.

He is Priest in the Episcopal Church, currently serving as Apprentice Rector at Church of the Messiah in Winter Garden, FL. He is also co-host of Pints with Jack, a weekly C. S. Lewis podcast. Fr. Andrew lives in Winter Garden, Florida with his wife, author and speaker Dr. Christin Ditchfield Lazo.

Dr. Daryl McCarthy

Daryl McCarthy, Executive Director of The Leadership Anvil, equips Christian academics, pastors, and ministry leaders for effective service. He is also a Theological Education Teaching Fellow with One Mission Society. From 2015-2021 he worked as Vice President of Academic Programs and Strategy at Forum of Christian Leaders (FOCL), and as Director of the European Leadership Forum Academic Network and the Cambridge Scholars Network. In addition to writing and speaking, he mentors Christian professors and ministry leaders in Europe and beyond. He has been speaking at universities, conferences, and churches globally for more than 30 years. After launching Global Scholars which placed Christians in teaching positions at universities outside of North America, he served as President from 1988 until 2014. Daryl is a long-time member of the Evangelical Theological Society. He earned a Doctor of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary School of Intercultural Studies, Master of Divinity from Nazarene Theological Seminary, Master of Arts in Philosophy of Religion from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Bachelor of Theology from Kansas Christian College. Daryl and his wife Dr. Teri McCarthy lived in Lithuania from 2010 until 2015 where they both taught at Lithuania University of Educational Sciences in Vilnius.

Dr. Joe Ricke

Dr. Joe Ricke (PhD, Rice University) is an independent scholar and director of the Inkling Folk Fellowship, an international group of scholars, readers, seekers, and artists, meeting via Zoom every Friday at 4 p.m. (EST). He was previously a Professor of English and Director of the Center for the Study of C. S. Lewis & Friends at Taylor University, where he organized and directed the highly acclaimed Lewis & Friends Colloquium in 2016 and 2018. At Taylor, Dr. Ricke curated the Brown Collection, and, in early 2020, oversaw the acquisition of the historic McCaslin Collection of Lewis materials. He has presented and published numerous essays and book chapters on Shakespeare and early drama, the Inklings, and Christian higher education. He has co-edited three books and, since 2012, has organized the Lewis and the Middle Ages panels at the International Congress on Medieval Studies.

His poems have appeared in various journals and book collections. As a singer/songwriter, he performs as Joe Martyn Ricke and with The Ricke Brothers.

Speakers with submitted papers:

Dr. Elmar Schenkel

Elmar Schenkel was visiting professor at the University of Massachusetts, at Indian and Russian universities. He taught English Literature at Konstanz, Tübingen and Freiburg, and was Chair of British Literature at the University of Leipzig from 1993 to 2019. He has written on G. K. Chesterton, Joseph Conrad, Owen Barfield and Nietzsche and also published books on Alchemy and Literature, and Bicycles in Literature, as well as essays, novels and travel books. In 2011 he was writer in residence in Cata/Transylvania and published two books about Romania. Since 2019 he has been Head of the Society for Comparative Mythology in Leipzig and works as a museum warden at the Nietzsche birthplace near Leipzig.

Dr. Karen Coats

Dr. Karen Coats, PhD, is Professor of Education and Director of the Centre for Research in Children's Literature at the University of Cambridge. She publishes widely on the intersection of youth literature and critical theory. Her most recent books include The Bloomsbury Introduction to Children's and Young Adult Literature, and the co-edited collection, Teaching Young Adult Literature.

Karen Coats is the co-editor of five essay collections and author of three books on literature for young readers, the most recent being The Bloomsbury Introduction to Children’s and Young Adult Literature; she has also written over 40 journal articles and book chapters on diverse subjects ranging from psychoanalytic theory to alphabet books to cognitive poetics to the development of the neoliberal subject in American children’s books to visual conceptual metaphors.

She has given invited keynote lectures in Sweden, Thailand, Russia, Taiwan, and China as well as here at Cambridge and in the US. She is the recipient of a Howard Foundation Fellowship, and has been a research fellow at two Seminars in Christian Scholarship at Calvin College. She holds a PhD in Human Sciences from George Washington University.

Dr. Jeffrey Hipolito

Dr. Jeffrey Hipolito is an independent scholar living in Seattle, Washington, USA. He earned his PhD in 2001 from the University of Washington, and his work has appeared in The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Journal of the History of Ideas, and European Romantic Review. He has published on Owen Barfield in Journal of Inklings Studies, VII, and The Coleridge Bulletin. He is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing to produce Owen Barfield’s Poetic Philosophy: Meaning and Imagination. He is also in the final stages of a book-length study of Owen Barfield’s work as a literary artist, tentatively titled: Rider on Pegasus: Owen Barfield as Poet, Playwright, and Novelist.

Dr. John Lotz

Prof. John Lotz is an Australian medical graduate who moved to England in 1966, for postgraduate Surgical Studies, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1970.

This led to being appointed a Consultant Surgeon in Stafford in 1976. In 1995 saw the first (academic) visit to Iasi; many more would follow – a combination of Surgical teaching as well as Church connections. He is appointed as Associate Profesor at UMF, Iasi.

His first contact with C. S. Lewis was as a teenager in 1956 when the Church Youth Group discovered “Mere Christianity” – it was a new book then. “Narnia” was founded 20 years later! Many other of his writings were read in the interim. All these became the subject matter for presentations of each of the C. S. Lewis Symposiums. This recurring event has been a highly enjoyable experience, which has been enhanced by meeting and sharing with many other Lewis devotees.

Dr. Danuț Mănăstireanu

He is an Anglican theologian, PhD in Theology at Brunel University in London, with a thesis entitled "A Perichoretic Model of the Church: The Trinitarian Ecclesiology of Dumitru Staniloae". He taught at Emanuel University in Oradea - hermeneutics, research methods, and ecclesiology, as well as at universities in Oradea and Cluj on Christian perspectives on communism and post-communism. He also served as an associate professor at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, in a spiritual formation course as part of a master's program. He is currently an associate professor at the Evangelical Theological Faculty in Osijek, Croatia, where he teaches cultural theology. He has supervised a doctoral thesis at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic. He is a member of the Academic Council of the Center for Mission Studies in Osijek, Croatia, and a member of the Board of the Orthodox Initiative of the Lausanne Movement.

Dr. Sarah Waters

Dr. Sarah Waters is a Lecturer in English Literature and an Honorary Junior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham. With a background in medical humanities, Shakespearean drama, and Inklings studies, she most frequently can be found working on projects connected to Lewis and Shakespeare. She was the first recipient of the Shuster Grant at the Wade Center, and regularly speaks at conferences on the Inklings and Shakespeare (sometimes together, sometimes separately). She is currently working on a couple of book length studies and a handful of articles. Recent publications include, “Disrupted dialogues: exploring misgendered diagnoses and experiences of melancholia and depression through the lens of Pericles and contemporary psychiatric practice”, “CS Lewis’ Science Fiction and Shakespeare: A Romance Made in the Heavens”, “Lewis, Lear, and The Four Loves”, an article in the Shakespeare and Cultural Apologetics special issue of An Unexpected Journal which she co-edited with Dr. Joe Ricke.

Dr. Melody Green

Dr. Melody Green is the Dean and associate professor of Christianity and Culture at Urbana Theological Seminary. Dr. Green earned her Ph.D. from Illinois State University in English Studies with a Specialization in Literature for Children and Adolescents. At Urbana Seminary she teaches courses on C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, George MacDonald, G. K. Chesterton and a variety of topics courses such as Christianity and Children's Literature. Dr. Green's most recent publications include co-editing J. R. R. Tolkien and the Arts: A Theology of Subcreation published by Square Halo Press in 2021, and "Tolkien's Sigurd and the Refracted Light", to be published in Volume 39 of VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center.

Dr. Anne-Frédérique Mochel-Caballero

Dr Anne-Frédérique Mochel-Caballero is a lecturer in English literature at the University of Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens, France and a member of the CORPUS research team. She currently teaches a class on fantasy literature and a class on the Bible and its influence on English Literature. Her PhD, published in 2011, explores gender relations in the works of C.S. Lewis. Her research focuses on fantasy literature, gender issues and the interface between literature and theology. She has published articles on authors including C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Madeleine L’Engle and J.K. Rowling.

Dr. Joyce McPherson

Dr. Joyce McPherson teaches English at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and is also the author of biographies for children, including “Beyond the Land of Narnia: The Story of C.S. Lewis.” She is currently writing a children’s biography of George MacDonald. She has published in the Victorian Institute Journal and The English Journal and has contributed chapters to books on Victorian Fiction and Containing Childhood as well as presented for the International Conference of the
Children’s Literature Association.

Dr. Brankica Bojović

Dr. Brankica Bojović (born 1965), has an MA and PhD from the University of Belgrade. She teaches at the University of Montenegro, Faculty of Philology. She was a guest professor at the University of Belgrade, Alfa University, and Union in Belgrade also. She was a visiting professor at Alexander Ioan Cuza University in Iasi (master academic course). Her research interests are mainly in the field of translation, culturology, semantics, and English for Specific Purposes. She has participated in numerous international conferences and so far published over a hundred scientific and research papers. She is the author of the following books: Engleski u kriminologiji (English in criminology), Leksika u kriminološkom registru (Lexis in the Criminological Register), Osnovi translatologije (Basics of Translatology), Savremene studije kulture 1 (Contemporary Cultural Studies 1); Engleski za posebne namene 1 i 2 (dva mala rečnika) English for Specific Purposes 1 and 2 (two small dictionaries). Translated books: Parlament danas (Parliament Today), Pravci u studijama prevođenja (The Turns of Translation studies), Odabrane pesme (Selected poems), and her famous Babel publication Fashion language and translatology.

Dr. Barbora Šmejdová

Dr. Barbora Šmejdová is an assistant professor at the Catholic Theological Faculty, in Prague. Her research focuses on the dialogue between the Christian faith and contemporary culture with a special emphasis on theology and literature. She wrote her Ph.D. on C. S. Lewis and the language of apologetics. Apart from the book based on the thesis, she has published several articles dealing with C. S. Lewis’s work. She also tries to interconnect Czech scholars interested in the Inklings by creating shared discussion platforms and special events.

Dr. Anna Leonidovna Gumerova

Anna Leonidovna Gumerova is a Graduate in Philological Sciences, Senior Research Assistant at the Department of Literary Theory, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She teaches at the Institute of Foreign Languages (Moscow State Pedagogical University). In 2001, she graduated from the State Academy of Slavonic Culture (Moscow). In 2007, she successfully defended her dissertation entitled “The Compositional Role of Internal Texts in F. M. Dostoevsky’s Works: Biblical Quotes in the Novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. Her main area of interests is composition, quotes, F. M. Dostoevsky’s works, J. R. R. Tolkien’s and C. S. Lewis’s works, fantasy literature, contemporary literature process. A. L. Gumerova wrote several articles concerning quotes and the problems of composition, J. R. R. Tolkien’s and C. S. Lewis’ works, fantasy literature.

Dr. Valentina Sergeevna Sergeeva

Valentina Sergeevna Sergeeva is a graduate in Philological Sciences, Senior Research Assistant at the Department of Literary Theory, A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a translator. She graduated from the Moscow State Pedagogical University In 2005; and from the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute (Moscow) in 2007. In 2008, she was granted a Candidate degree after presenting her dissertation on medieval English ballads. She published several works in the series “Literature Heritage” (“Literaturnye pamyatniki”), such as “York Mystery Cycle” and “Robin Hood Ballads”. She also wrote a book of history tales for children. Her area of interest is documentary, historical commentary, medieval literature, English literature, fantasy literature, J. R. R. Tolkien’s, and C. S. Lewis’ works.

D. Min. Lyndsay Thompson

Lyndsay Thompson is a lecturer in Clinical Counselling and Thanatology at Tyndale University in Toronto, Canada. Her classes include counselling and thanatology skills as well as grief, death and dying in the family system. She is a Registered Psychotherapist and works primarily with children and their families through a variety of therapeutic methods including play. She is completing a Doctor of Ministry in Spiritual Formation. Her areas of interest include story, imagination, spirituality, and psychology.

Dr. Donna Pavelescu Ursu

Dr. Donna-Alexandra Ursu holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from The University of Bucharest. Her doctoral research explores the language of death and dying in English and Romanian through the lens of cognitive linguistics. In 2022, her book The Language of Death and Dying in English and Romanian was published by Ars Longa, Iași. She is deeply interested in C.S. Lewis’s apologetic writings and in ancient Greek language which, she believes, meaningfully enrich her life. Apart from her keen interest in the Afterlife, she is passionate about teaching and methodology, having taught English and French for more than 20 years. Her book on how to teach a foreign language, entitled Supercalifragilisticmetodologistic – Ghid metodologic de facilitare a învățării limbilor străine - is to be published soon. The book is meant to provide young language teachers (and not only) with the main principles and some practical advice connected to language teaching.

Dr. Raluca Pelin

Raluca Ștefania Pelin is an assistant lecturer at “Ion Ionescu de la Brad” Iași University of Life Sciences, where she teaches English for Specific Purposes. The main focus of her research is the integration of concepts related to emotional intelligence and emotional literacy skills into the study of literary and non-literary texts. Her interest in observing the way in which patterns of emotional intelligence are intrinsic to literary works has materialized in the publication of several articles: “The Coral Island vs. Lord of the Flies Variations in Emotional Intelligence Skills”, “C. S. Lewis's Narnia and J. R. R. Tolkien's Middleearth: Realms of Emotionally Intelligent Characters”, “Emotions and Emotional Intelligence Beyond Words in the Poetry of Rose Ausländer, Selma-Meerbaum Eisinger, Paul Celan, and Dan Pagis”, etc.

Dr. Alin Christoph Cucu

Dr. Alin Christoph Cucu (Ph.D., University of Lausanne) is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Lausanne. He is the author of several peer-reviewed papers on mind-body-interaction, and co-editor of an anthology titled “Religious Hypotheses and the Study of Human Nature” (in Romanian, Institutul European, forthcoming). His co-authored paper “How Dualists Should (Not) Respond to the Objection From Energy Conservation” (with J. Brian Pitts) was awarded the Best Paper Prize of the Mind and Matter Society. In recent years he won three Templeton grants in Romania for research projects at the intersection of theology, philosophy, and science. His research focuses on soul-body-dualism, the Christian worldview vs. the modern worldview, and the philosophy of C. S. Lewis.

Dr. Constantin Ghioncă

Dr. Constantin (Costel) Ghioancă is a doctor in Theology and Philosophy (University of Bucharest), a university lecturer at the Baptist Theological Institute in Bucharest and the director of the "La Grazia" Bible School in Italy. He is also the senior pastor of "Adonai" Baptist church in Bucharest.

He published several books and articles, such as, The Posthuman. A Critical Examination of Posthuman Subjectivity, Paideia Publishing House, Bucharest, 2021; Expository Preaching: More Than a Mere Method, Făclia Publishing House, Oradea, 2018; The Western Emerging Churches from a Romanian Baptist Perspective, Risoprint Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 2010. He gives lectures on various topics related to family, preaching, the relationship between church and society, faith and culture, philosophy, and others.

Dr. Corneliu C. Simuț

Dr. Corneliu C. Simuț, holds a BA in Theology and a BA in Pastoral Theology from the University of Bucharest in 1998; he earned his PhD in Church History from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, Great Britain, in 2003, his ThD in Dogmatic Theology from the University of Tilburg, the Netherlands, in 2005, and his Dr. Habil. in Dogmatic Theology from the Reformed Theological University of Debrecen, Hungary, in 2012. In 2014, he received his DD by publications in Systematic Theology from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Professor Simuț is experienced in academic teaching, research, publishing, administration, and reviewing. He started as a tutor in historical and dogmatic theology at the Faculty of Theology within Emanuel University of Oradea, where he served as a Professor of systematic theology. He has also served in various academic positions such as Chief Librarian, Director of the Centre for the Research and Promotion of Evangelical Values, Head of the Department of Theology, Music, and Social-Humanistic Studies, President of Emanuel University Senate, and Rector of Emanuel University. Professor Simuț is also an author and translator, with many published articles and books in the field of theology.

Dr. Teofil Stanciu

Teofil Stanciu (Ph.D., Aurel Vlaicu University, Arad) is affiliated with Ars Theologica Research Center – Aurel Vlaicu University. His primary field of interest is public theology and, in his dissertation, he connected the concept of kenosis with Christian public presence and with literary expression. He is also interested in interdenominational dialogue and relations as well as in engaging culture and society from a Christian perspective. He is the editorial director of a publishing house (decenu.eu) and editor-in-

chief of an online magazine (convergente.ro).

Dr. Marius Clim

Dr. Marius Clim has been a researcher at the Department of Lexicology and Lexicography, the “A. Philippide” Institute of Romanian Philology – Iasi Branch of the Romanian Academy since 2004. He has a keen interest in computerizing Romanian lexicography, which led him to work on editing a dictionary directly in electronic format and digitizing academic lexicographical works.

Marius Clim was involved in the editorial and revision activities of The Academic Dictionary of the Romanian Language (DLR), where he focused on computerizing the editorial resources and processes. He was responsible for scanning over 4000 titles of DLR's bibliography within the eDTLR - Thesaurus Dictionary of the Romanian Language in electronic format, a complex project coordinated by “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi from 2007 to 2010. Marius Clim also worked on a subsequent project from 2010 to 2013, creating a corpus of 100 dictionaries from the history of Romanian lexicography, aligned by entries, to optimize the activity of documentation regarding the editing of the thesaurus dictionary of the Romanian language. Currently, he and his team are preparing a new edition of The Academic Dictionary of the Romanian Language (DLR) that will be elaborated directly in XML format, which is a premiere for Romanian lexicography.

Phd, MA, Batchelor students

PhD student Curtis W. White

Curtis W. White is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Ulster University in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. He is working on a thesis comparing T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis along theological lines. He holds a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Vermont, and an M.A. in English Literature (with distinction) from Ulster University. He is currently co-organising the third in a series of interdisciplinary symposia on C. S. Lewis to take place this November at Ulster University. He has previously attended The International TS Eliot Summer School at IES London on a full bursary (July 2022) and has presented a paper at The International T.S. Eliot Society’s 43 Annual Meeting (St Louis, USA, in Sept 2022). He has been shortlisted for a best paper award at Ulster University’s Festival of Research (March 2021). Originally from the United States, Curtis now resides in Northern Ireland, where he has lived with his wife and daughter for the last decade.

PhD student Olivia Simoni

Olivia Simoni holds a B.A. in English Literature from Cornell University and is currently a first-year Ph.D. student at Duke University. Her principal research focuses on American literature and religious political history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Whether exploring the pervasiveness of religious motifs within the worlds of modern fiction or studying the way faith laid the foundation for the American anti-slavery movement, Simoni highlights the significance of Christianity’s role in shaping the literary landscape of the United States and beyond. Having grown up in Europe and the Middle East, and having worked as an NGO volunteer in Africa prior to her arrival at Duke, Olivia Simoni is an international academic at heart, bringing her global perspective into her study of Western literature.

PhD student Teodora Driscu

Teodora Driscu is a third-year PhD student in English Literature at "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi, Romania. Her thesis focuses on C.S. Lewis and the revival of spirituality in 20th-century literature. She has completed both her BA in English and French Language and Literature and her MA in American Studies at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi. She had Erasmus+ scholarships of study at the University of Sorbonne IV in Paris (BA) and the University of Strasbourg (MA) and during her Ph.D. she did an Erasmus+ traineeship at the School of English, University of Leicester, UK. She has written papers about C.S. Lewis and human nature, Lewis and his approach to modernism, and some Romanian writers such as Virgil Gheorghiu. Her research interests centre around the intersection between literature and Christianity in British and Romanian culture.

Phd student Estera Federeciuc

Estera Federciuc is currently a second-year PhD student in the Doctoral School of Philological Studies, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iasi, currently preparing a thesis on the functions of metaphors in C. S. Lewis’s works from a translation perspective. She earned an MA in Specialised Translation and Studies in Terminology from the University of Bucharest and a BA in Translation and Interpretation at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi. She studied as an Erasmus student at the Catholic University of the West in Angers (BA) and at Lumière University Lyon 2 (MA) and will be at Sorbonne Nouvelle University, again as an Erasmus+ student, during the second semester of her current PhD year. Before starting her PhD, she worked as a trainee translator in Luxembourg, as an English teacher and French-Romanian interpreter in Lyon, as a translation project manager for a company in Bucharest and as a French teacher at the French Institute of Bucharest. In addition to her interests in C. S. Lewis, linguistics and translation, she enjoys conversations about the writings of the other Inklings, especially J.R.R. Tolkien, and about biblical theology and philosophy.

Phd student Bogdan Dezman

Bogdan-Antoniu Deznan is a PhD candidate at the University of Bucharest. He is also a research associate of the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism (University of Cambridge). The topic of his doctoral dissertation is the concept of deification in the thought of the Cambridge Platonists (primarily Benjamin Whichcote, John Smith, Henry More, and Ralph Cudworth) and how this issue relates to the larger early modern theological and philosophical contexts. His primary research interests concern the history of theological and philosophical ideas in the early modern period, the appropriation of Patristic and Platonic/Neoplatonic sources in the seventeenth century, the theological underpinnings of natural philosophy, and the interplay between metaphysical and theological discourses.

Phd student Florin Adrian Marc

Florin Adrian Marc is an innovative digital sculptor and artist, recognized for the skillful integration of three-dimensional shape with advanced technology of virtual reality. Licensed in Sculpture from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca and holding two master's degrees - one in sculpture and another in Digital Interactive Arts, Florin Marc is currently a PhD student at the Department of Cinematography and Media at the Faculty of Theatre and Film of Babeș-Bolyai University.

His works are placed in a continuous dialogue between real and virtual, exploring the limits of narrative through the lens of fantasy literature. His academic research combines rigorous study with artistic innovation, focusing on virtual reality as a medium of artistic expression. His works have been presented at various group and personal exhibitions at the local and national level also benefiting during the Master of Digital Interactive Arts period of a creative scholarship awarded by Babes Bolyai University. Florin Marc’s works were presented at national and international festivals, his works were distinguished by originality and conceptual depth at the Digital Throne festival in 2023 in Iași.

MFA Natalie Morrill

Natalie Morrill holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Her fiction and poetry have been published in Canadian journals and included in The Journey Prize anthology published by Penguin Random House Canada. Her first novel, The Ghost Keeper (2018), was recognized with the HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Fiction. She is the Fiction Editor for the American literary journal Dappled Things and teaches in the Professional Writing program at Algonquin College (Ottawa, Ontario). She has previously taught at Laurentian University (Sudbury, Ontario), Seat of Wisdom College (Barry's Bay, Ontario), and the University of Saint Thomas (Houston, Texas), as well as through various community organizations. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.

MA Jamin Metcalf

Jamin Metcalf is a pastor, educator, and the head of Journey College. Jamin holds a master’s degree in Humanities from the University of Dallas, as well as degrees in History and Theology from Southeastern University. During his career in education he has taught courses on Ancient History, American History, American Literature, and Rhetoric. He is also the author of several fiction and non-fiction works including Many Times & Many Places: C.S. Lewis and the Value of History (2023), C.S. Lewis and the Historical Imagination (2023), The Brightest Star (2021), and Why Christian Pedagogy Matters (2019).

MA Țermure Cătălin-Bogdan

Cătălin Țermure (b. 2000) studied Theology at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology, Babeș-Bolyai University at Cluj-Napoca (Romania). He studies the History of Religions as a master’s program at the same faculty. His academical interests are the inter-Christian and inter-faith dialogues, the philosophy of religion, and the relationship between faith and imagination, the latter expressed in his bachelor’s dissertation with the title “C.S. Lewis: Faith and Imagination. A Missiological Approach”. Since 2019 he is a member of the International Ecumenical Fellowship in Romania and has participated at two of the fellowship’s international conferences, in 2019 (Krakow) and in 2022 (Liverpool). In 2021 he completed a POCU (Human Capital Operational Programme) Internship within the IEF Romania, with a focus on the ecumenical status quo in Transylvania. His interest in C.S. Lewis has a starting point in the fall of 2018, after a close group reading of The Screwtape Letters.

BA Rhiannon Jeffrey

Rhiannon Jeffrey is a 3rd year undergraduate student, studying at McGill University in Canada, currently on a semester abroad program at the University of Edinburgh. She is pursuing a major in Political Science and a minor in Medieval Studies. She grew up on Long Island and splits time between New York, Montreal, and the Ottawa Valley.

Artists:

Ross Wilson

Ross Wilson is one of Ireland’s leading artists and sculptors, considered by many to be one of the most relevant and collectible artists of his generation. He graduated with a First-Class Honours degree in Fine Art from the Ulster University and went on to receive his master’s degree from the prestigious Chelsea School of Art, London. He has been a visiting speaker at Harvard University, Magdalen College Oxford, Jesus College Cambridge and Wheaton College Chicago, and the National Portrait Gallery London, he was recently invited as a guest speaker by Members of Congress at the President’s ‘National Prayer Breakfast’ in Washington DC. He is presently a guest lecturer and Adjunct Professor on the Irish Studies Program with John Brown University USA. In 2019 New Year’s Honors List, he was awarded a BEM by HRH Queen Elizabeth II for his services to charity, community outreach and work amongst underprivileged communities in Northern Ireland, and more recently in Rwanda. In 2023 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of County Londonderry, a position given approval by King Charles III.

Wilson’s many portrait commissions have included Nobel Laureates Derek Walcott and Seamus Heaney for the National Portrait Gallery London; the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, and the American playwright and Pulitzer Prize Winner Arthur Miller. Wilson’s work has also been showcased at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s London. His work is contained in many public and private collections, these include: The National Portrait Gallery London, The Keats - Shelley Museum Rome, Tate Britain London, Jesus College Cambridge, The Fogg Museum Harvard - Mass USA, The British Museum London, James Joyce Museum Dublin, National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland, Ashmolean Museum Oxford, Private Collection of HRH King Charles III, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Palace of Westminster London, The Ulster Museum Belfast.

Ross Wilson believes in community outreach through creativity, educational interaction and renewal within marginalized communities in Northern Ireland, and more recently in Rwanda. He believes passionately in creative interaction with young people, that creativity is an important part of well-being and key dynamic within educational development, helping to foster original ideas that bring value, meaning, and influence to a young person’s inner and outer life, that in turn help create and evolve hope through self-belief, ambition and vision.

Liviu Mocan

Artistic credo:

I am striving to polish mirrors for heaven.

Status: self-employed

He was born in the year of grace 1955 in the village of Cara, Romania, from where, following the confiscation of material goods by the communist regime, his family moved to the city of Cluj. Here, as a child, he started on the path of the arts, graduating in turn from the Little School of Art, the High School of Art, the Academy of Art, then he completed post-academic studies at two universities in North America.

He undertook study trips to the most important centers of universal sculpture.

He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions and has works of art in private collections on all continents and created public works in four of them.

He lives with his family and creates in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Organizers:

Dr. Rodica Albu

Dr. Rodica Albu is Professor Emerita at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, founding member of the Linguaculture Research Centre for Interlingual and Intercultural Studies, author, co-author and editor of volumes (such as Myth and Folk Elements in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats, English Synonyms, Using English(es), Migrating Memories: Central Europe in Canada, English in Canada. Representations of Language and Identity, Irish Studies Reader) and articles that testify to her interest in dynamic approaches to language, culture and society in their interrelatedness, co-organizer of the C. S. Lewis conference series, co-author and editor of the volume Inklings. Litera și spiritul (Inklings. The Letter and the Spirit) and translator of the first signed Romanian version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1993).

Dr. Teodora Ghivirigă

Dr. Teodora Ghivirigă is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Letters within the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, the Department of Modern Languages. She currently teaches Terminology, Semantics and (Specialized) Translation. She has published a volume on the formation of the terminology of Economics in Romanian and a number of papers on the terminology and translation of texts on Economics and also corpus based articles on translation into Romanian, as well as a number of translations on various topics (linguistics, cultural studies). She is also interested in English (British mainly) literature for children and in fantasy, especially in the works of the authors known as Inklings. Didactic interests also include teaching English to adults (especially in specialized domains such as Business and Economics and Law).

Dr. Daniela Vasiliu

Dr. Daniela Vasiliu has a BA in English philology and theology, and MA in theology from the University of Bucharest. She got her PhD in Philology - English Literature, with an interdisciplinary thesis on C. S. Lewis (C. S. Lewis at the border between Christian spirituality and fiction), and a post-doctoral degree in Philology with research on Theories of Imagination in Literature, Philosophy, and Theology, both from the Doctoral School of Philological Studies of the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania. She is now a PhD student, with research on Truth, Love and Beauty - Images of Redemption in Dorothy Sayers and Iris Murdoch, at The Theological Doctoral School of the University of Bucharest.

She is CEO of Agora Christi Foundation, and Founder and Chair of The C. S. Lewis & Kindred Spirits Society for Central and Eastern Europe. She is a Lecturer at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania.

Convenors:

Dr. Emanuel Conțac

Emanuel Conțac (b. 1981) works an associate professor of the New Testament at the Pentecostal Theological Institute of Bucharest. His long-standing passion for the spiritual legacy of C.S. Lewis has motivated him to translate into Romanian the following works: Surprised by Joy (Romanian: Surprins de Bucurie), published by Humanitas in 2008, with subsequent editions totalling more than 10.000 copies; Fern-Seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity (Ferigi și elefanți, Humanitas, 2011); Reflections on the Psalms (Meditații la Psalmi, Humanitas, 2013). His paper on the reception of C.S. Lewis in Post-Communist Romania” was published in Linguaculture (vol. 5, 2014/2).

Owen A. Barfield

Owen A. Barfield is the only grandchild of the “First and Last Inkling” Owen Barfield (1898 – 1997). He was 28 when his Grandfather passed away, and became the trustee of the Owen Barfield Literary Estate in 2006. The Barfield Press was started as the publishing arm of the Literary Estate.

A new collection of Barfield essays and a new illustrated edition of The Silver Trumpet are due out soon, with more to come.

Research material is in the archive of the Owen Barfield Papers at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (Owen’s permission is needed to view).

Additional Barfield archival papers are also available in the Wade Collection, Wheaton IL and at Azusa Pacific University Library, near Los Angeles USA.

The website www.owenbarfield.org carries much further information.

Owen currently lives in Oxfordshire, England with his wife and daughters.

He is a member of the Anthroposophical Society of Great Britain.

His interests include oil-painting, herbalism and healing.

Dr. Ștefan Colibaba

Stefan Colibaba is a Professor of Literature at Al.I.Cuza University Iasi – Romania. He has written on the American short story and on British modernism, while also teaching various courses (education management, strategies in teaching/learning languages, ELT materials development and evaluation) as part of an M.A. programme in Applied Linguistics.

He has been course director and lead trainer for regional training courses (Thailand, Colombia, Pakistan, Hungary, Romania, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Rep. of Moldova) focusing on the link between language development and human rights education, citizenship education, inclusive education, critical thinking, autonomous learning.

Dr. Dana Bădulescu

Dana Bădulescu holds a PhD in Philology following the defense of the thesis Impressionistic Modes and Metaphoric Structures in E. M. Forster’s Fiction and Criticism. She teaches modernist and postmodernist British and American literature, literary theory and critical thinking, transculturalism, poetics and translations at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, Romania. Since 2010 the foci of her research have been migrancy, hybridity, transnationalism and transculturalism. In December 2014 she formed a national research network which joined ISCH COST Action IS 1404 "Evolution of reading in the age of digitisation (E-READ)." This gave her the go-ahead to explore the process of reading in print and on screens. She has been a friend of the C. S. Lewis conferences and she contributed the translation of Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River to the “Inklings and Kindred Spirits” collection of tales for children of all ages.

Dr. Rodica Mocan

Rodica Mocan is professor at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, specializing in digital media and new media arts. She has a PhD in Sociology (2005) with research on new e-learning methods and a PhD in Theater and Performing Arts (2016) with a theme related to interactive digital performance. She obtained her qualification in Cinematography and Media with a thesis on digital media arts.

Her current research interests are on the impact of digital technologies on various aspects of life, especially in interactive digital arts and emerging artistic genres. His publications include eLearning – A Sociological Perspective (Risoprint, 2007), Emerging Media Genres – New Media Documentary (Risoprint, 2013), and Critical Paradigms in Interactive Digital Performance (Cluj University Press, 2017), as well as other academic articles among which "From co-creator to Demiurge; a Theological and Philosophical Perspective on Transhumanist Art". She accredited and coordinates the Digital Interactive Arts masters program within the Faculty of Theater and Film and coordinates doctoral students in Cinematography and Media.