Week 1: Saturday, July 22 – Friday, July 28
Week 2: Sunday, July 30 – Saturday, August 5
A One-of-a-Kind Small Group Experience in C.S. Lewis’ Home Near Oxford, England
Don’t miss this extraordinary opportunity to explore the life and works of C.S. Lewis with a small group of fellow travelers at C.S. Lewis’ beloved home, The Kilns!
Join us for a week of learning, fellowship, and renewal in the world renowned “City of the Dreaming Spires”– Oxford, England.
Visit many of the places in Oxford where C.S. Lewis and his fellow Inklings taught, frequented, and lived.
Stay in a nearby bed and breakfast as you visit The Kilns daily to study with Don King, Kim Gilnett, and Debbie Higgens, who will lead you in an engaging exploration of how Lewis’ imagination helped shape his apologetics.
Experience the pleasures of new friendships, fine dining, and warm hospitality as you find respite from the hectic pace of modern day life. Whether enjoying the many cultural treasures of Oxford, venturing on a guided tour of the city of Cambridge, or having tea in the garden with your companions, you will find your visit to The Kilns to be one of life’s rare treasures.
For an unforgettable inside visit to the world of Lewis’ Oxford and Cambridge, this most unique program offers the definitive experience. You simply won’t want to miss it!
* Please note that the content of the second week is the same as the first week.
“The Imagination and Apologetics of C.S. Lewis”
This seminar will offer a comprehensive view of the life and works of C.S. Lewis with a focus upon how his imagination helped to shape his apologetics.
Because Lewis has powerfully influenced so many people, this course will explore his approach to making Christianity intellectually reasonable, theologically winsome, and spiritually compelling.
In addition to reading selections from his letters, journals, poems, fiction, non-fiction, and apologetics, participants will view and discuss important video productions in order to gain a perspective on the ideas, thoughts, and opinions of the most popular Christian author of the twentieth century.
Details
Leaders: Professor Don King, Kim Gilnett, and Debbie Higgens (see below for biographical information)
Itinerary: Visit our Itinerary page for details.
Registration: Registration includes all sessions and programming for the event, local transportation during the program, entrance fees to local/regional attractions, and 7 meals: 5 lunches, 1 afternoon tea, and 2 dinners.
Registration does not include: airfare, lodging, breakfast, pre and post event transportation, other meals, and other expenses not specifically mentioned.
Enrollment for each week is limited to 14 people.
Some scholarship funding is available. Applicants are not required to be students to be eligible. You will need to submit 1) your resumé, 2) a letter explaining why you’d like to attend the seminar and why you need financial support, and 3) two letters of recommendation, preferably a professional one and a personal one speaking to your personal character and faith. If you would like to apply for a scholarship or have any questions, please contact Maribeth Barber Albritton at malbritton@cslewis.org.
Scholarship application deadline: You must submit your application by February 21 and all reference letters by February 27.
Speakers & Staff
Don King — On the faculty of Montreat College since 1974, Don W. King is a Faculty Fellow and Professor of English. His primary teaching responsibilities are in British literature and the Honors Program. From from 1999 to 2015 he served as Editor of the Christian Scholar’s Review. He has previously led Summer Seminars at the Kilns in 2004, 2009, and 2019.
His over eighty essays and reviews have appeared in Books & Culture, Christianity and Literature, The Chronicle of the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society, CSL: Bulletin of the New York C. S. Lewis Society, Christian Scholar’s Review, The Journal of Inklings Studies, Literature and Religion, Mythlore, Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal, SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review, Studies in the Literary Imagination, The C. S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia, C. S. Lewis—Life, Works, and Legacy.
He is author of C. S. Lewis, Poet: The Legacy of His Poetic Impulse, Hunting the Unicorn: A Critical Biography of Ruth Pitter, Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman, Taking Every Thought Captive: Forty Years of the Christian Scholar’s Review, Plain to the Inward Eye: Selected Essays on C. S. Lewis, The Letters of Ruth Pitter: Silent Music, The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis: A Critical Edition, A Naked Tree: Joy Davidman’s Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis and Other Poems, Yet One More Spring: A Critical Study of Joy Davidman, and Sudden Heaven: The Collected Poems of Ruth Pitter, A Critical Edition.
His latest book was released in January 2023: Inkling, Soldier, Historian, and Brother: A Life of Warren Hamilton Lewis.
Kim Gilnett — Kim is Senior Admissions Counselor at the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Seattle Pacific University. His abiding passion as an Anglophile and true Lewisian has made him a highly experienced and engaging tour leader for our C.S. Lewis Summer Seminars.
His intense study of Lewis has afforded him the opportunity to meet a number of Lewis’s friends and scholars. He has spent over 17 summers at The Kilns, where he has been actively involved in ensuring the historical accuracy of its restoration and in the conduct of the Summer Seminars.
Debbie Higgens – Debbie currently serves as the Resident Medievalist in the English department at La Sierra University. She served as Director to the C.S. Lewis Study Centre at The Kilns from 2010 until 2014. Previous to her work for the C.S. Lewis Foundation, she taught in the English Department of Southern Adventist University for the past 17 years. She has also served as a full-time missionary in Costa Rica, lived in Japan as a child, and spent five of her teen-age years living in Turkey and Germany. Debbie has been involved with the C.S. Lewis Foundation since 2002 and first visited the Kilns in its early renovation stages in 1994. She is the author of Anglo-Saxon Community in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which she wrote while living at the Kilns as a Scholar-in-Residence.
“Jack and I went out and saw the place on Sunday morning, and I instantly caught the infection: we did not go inside the house, but the eight acre garden is such stuff as dreams are made of.”
–Major Warren Lewis, from Brothers and Friends, upon describing his first visit to The Kilns