C.S. Lewis Summer Institute July 7-16th 2006
Williams College, Williamstown, MA

Plenary Speakers and Preachers

Atessa Afshar – Born in Tehran, Iran to a nominally Muslim family, before the Islamic Revolution, Tessa moved to England at age 14, and has made the United States her home since her senior year of high school.  She converted to Christianity in her twenties, and she is one of the few women from a Muslim background working in fulltime church ministry in the world. Tessa has a B.A. degree in English and Biology, and an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School.  She is an Associate Minister at First Church of Christ in Wethersfield, CT, and served at the Ridgefield Congregational Church for three years prior to that.  Her speaking engagements include women’s conferences and retreats as well as church- sponsored events.

Fr. Romanus Cessario – A Dominican priest, ordained in 1971, Fr. Cessario earned his doctorate at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.  Since 1995, he has taught moral and sacramental theology at St. John’s Seminary, Boston.  He is the author of several books in theology.  His latest is entitled, A Short History of Thomism (Catholic Univ. of America Press).  He lectures both in the U.S. and abroad, and co-edits the French journal of religion and culture Pierre d’Angle.  He is a Fellow of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He led the successful effort to complete the Human Genome Project (HGP).  He earned a B.S. from the University of Virginia, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Yale University, and an M.D. from the University of North Carolina. Following a fellowship in Human Genetics at Yale, he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan, where he remained until moving to NIH in 1993. His research has led to the identification of genes responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease and Hutchison-Gilford progeria syndrome. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.

James Como – Chair, Department of Performing and Fine Arts, Prof. of Rhetoric and Speech Communications, York College, City University of NY, Como is a founding member of the New York C.S. Lewis Society and former editor of its periodical, CSL.
Author of Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C.S. Lewis as well as of numerous articles on Lewis, and editor of the volume, C.S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table and Other Reminiscences, he has also been a commentator about Lewis and his work on radio and for various documentary films. Como holds a master’s degree in Medieval Literature from Fordham University and the Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Columbia University.

Nigel Goodwin – Graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; Founder of the London Arts Centre Group; Trustee of the C.S. Lewis Foundation; and Executive Director of Genesis Arts Trust, a ministry committed to serving the needs of Christian artists throughout the world.

Malcolm Guite – Chaplain and Fellow, Girton College, Cambridge, teaching Literature and Pastoral Theology for the Cambridge Federation of Theological Colleges. Trained for the Priesthood at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, he was ordained in 1990. His doctoral thesis was on the links between the theology of Lancelot Andrewes and the poetry of T.S. Eliot. Involved with a number of projects linking theology and the arts, he has published poetry, literary criticism and theology in various journals. As founder of the rock band, Mystery Train, Guite writes lyrics and performs on guitar and vocals.

Bruce Herman is Chair and Professor of Art at Gordon College in Wenham, MA and Director of The Gallery at Barrington Center for the Arts. He lectures widely and has had work published in many books, journals, and popular magazines.  His artwork has been exhibited in over 50 exhibitions in eleven major American cities and in five other countries.  His paintings, prints, and drawings explore the perennial human dilemma – the longing for transcendence and the paradoxical reality of human mortality with all its melancholy, hope, and comic/tragic truth. He also frequently draws upon the Bible for images and inspiration, finding in it an inexhaustible reservoir of beauty and meaning.

Thomas Howard – Professor of English Emeritus, St. John's Seminary College, Boston; contributor to The New York Times Book Review, Christianity Today, New Oxford Review, and other journals; a highly acclaimed writer, scholar and critic, noted for his studies of Inklings Charles Williams  and C.S. Lewis [C.S. Lewis: Man of Letters and Narnia and Beyond: A Guide to the Fiction of C.S. Lewis (2006, 1987)], as well as numerous popular books including Splendor in the Ordinary, Christ the Tiger, Chance or the Dance, and most recently, Dove Descending: A Journey into T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets.”

Ralph Mattson – With his beginnings rooted in Brooklyn, NY, Ralph received his
spiritual education in the context of a vibrant Norwegian emigrant church there.  He completed his B.A. at Pratt Institute. A stint at Harvard, earned him the last M.A. degree given there in Latin. Over the course of his career, Ralph has been Director of Arts and Humanities for the Farmington, CT Public Schools, Founding Headmaster of The Master’s School, Executive V.P. for a consulting firm and currently president of The DOMA Group, a consulting firm that equips corporations to make effective use of human resources.

Stan Mattson - Founder and President of the C.S. Lewis Foundation, CA, and Managing Director of the C.S. Lewis Foundation (U.K.), he has undertaken a strategically significant work of Christian renewal in the neglected realm of contemporary higher education. An American social and intellectual historian, he has been a member of the teaching faculties of North Carolina State University, Gordon College, and the University of Redlands. He brings to the work of the Foundation extensive administrative and business experience which includes his former service as the CEO of a mid-sized commercial real estate development corporation, the headmaster of two Christian preparatory schools, and the Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations at the University of Redlands. In conjunction with the work of the Foundation, he finds time to lecture widely on the life and legacy of C.S. Lewis and related subjects on many campuses and churches across the nation.

Karen Mulder – An art and architectural historian, Karen recently completed her dissertation at the University of Virginia about the effects of Germany’s reconstruction after World War II on ecclesiastic glass and architecture. Speaking internationally on Christianity and contemporary art since 1981, she received the Menil Scholarship of Visual Art at Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music and the Arts. Her reviews on contemporary ecclesial art, artists of faith, and art/architectural criticism appear in American Arts Quarterly, Material Religion, and Square Halo Books. Serving on boards for the Newington Cropsey Cultural Studies Center (NYC) and Christians in the Visual Arts (MA), she has also enjoyed orbiting the C.S. Lewis Foundation as a trustee, plenary speaker, seminar leader and arts coordinator at a number of its conferences since 1991.

Armand Nicholi, Jr. – Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital, he has served on the Harvard Medical School Faculty for the past 26 years. He teaches a popular course at the medical school and an undergraduate course at Harvard College which served as the basis for his recent book The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life as well as the PBS series of the same name. He is editor and co-author  of The Harvard Guide to Psychiatry, one of the leading textbooks on psychiatry used in universities and medical schools throughout the world.

Ben Patterson – Author of several books, He Has Made Me Glad, Serving God (The Grand Essentials), Waiting, Deepening Your Conversation with God, and a Prayer Devotional Bible, as well as contributing editor to Christianity Today and the Leadership Journal, Ben has been Campus Pastor at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, for the past five years. He served for six years as Dean of the Chapel at Hope College, Holland, MI. In addition, he has been senior pastor at two churches, including founding pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church, CA. Combining the heart of a poet with the mind of a theologian, we have been privileged to have Ben as our Oxbridge Chaplain during our past three Summer Institutes..

Joseph Pearce –A world-recognized biographer of modern Christian literary figures; author of 14 books that have been published and translated into over eight languages, including bestsellers G.K. Chesterton: Wisdom and Innocence, Literary Converts, Tolkien: Man and Myth, Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile, and Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc. Writer-in-Residence and Professor of Literature at Ave Maria University, he also serves as Editor of the Saint Austin Review, a trans-Atlantic monthly cultural review, and as contributing writer to a number of newspapers and magazines in the U.K., U.S. and Canada; he is also an accomplished tutor, teacher and lecturer.

Dick Staub – President of the Center for Faith & Culture, an award-winning broadcaster and a writer who understands faith and culture and interprets each to the other. His interdisciplinary discussions are a rare blend of film, theology, music, serious fiction, celebrity-quotes, in-depth interviews with culture shapers and more. Prepare for laughs, the provocation of thought and some powerful and practical ideas for Christians in culture.  He is author of Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters, Too Christian, Too Pagan, and the soon-to-be released Deeper Well.

James Emery White – President-elect and Professor of Theology and Culture at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, which began with a single family and grew to over 5,000 active attenders, by the conclusion of his tenure, with over 70% of its growth coming from the  previously unchurched. With a B.S. from Appalachian State University, White holds the M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has also done advanced graduate study at Vanderbilt University in American religious history, and post-doctoral continuing education in theology at Oxford University, England.  White is the author of over a dozen books, including Serious Times, A Search for the Spiritual, Embracing the Mysterious God, The Prayer God Longs For, and Rethinking the Church.

Seminar and Workshop Faculty

Gayne Anacker – Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences and Prof. of Philosophy, California Baptist University; serves as Vice President and a Trustee of the C.S. Lewis Foundation;  Founding President of Community Christian College, Redlands, CA.  Anacker holds graduate degrees in both philosophy and theology, but his real passion is Great Books education.  He has been a Humanities Resource Fellow of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, and he was for two years a Teaching Associate of the Humanities Core Course at the University of California, Irvine.

Matthew Dominguez shares C.S. Lewis’ and J.R.R. Tolkien’s love for teaching truth and exploring God’s creation.  He teaches high school literature, including classes on the works of Shakespeare and the Inklings at Wheaton Academy, Wheaton, IL.  His classrooms, however, are not limited to this setting.  As director of the school’s Adventure Club and Climbing Club, he creates opportunities to inspire students in the mountains of Colorado and the limestone cliffs of West Virginia.  He earned his M.A. in Literature from the University of Illinois at Chicago and was at Houghton College, NY from 1993 to 2002, as an interim instructor in their outdoor education program, trip leader, program assistant, and rock climbing instructor.

Andrew Lazo – A Ph.D. candidate at Rice University, where he studies Modernist British literature, Lazo is a Jacob K. Javits Fellow in the Humanities, as well as a visiting scholar at the Marion E. Wade Center (Wheaton, IL).  He has published several articles about Lewis and Tolkien and has lectured around the country on their books. He has also taught a highly popular church-based adult education course, exploring devotional aspects of The Chronicles of Narnia.  He has enthusiastically led the Children’s Track at our Southeast Regional Retreat at Camp Allen, Texas in 2004 and 2005.

Jeffrey S. Miller, director of theater at Gordon College, was the founder and served as Artistic Director of The Refreshment Committee Theatre Company of St. Paul, MN, for fourteen years. Sustaining multiple productions with local and national tours, he created a place for theatre with a faith perspective in the Twin Cities area, an arena of world-class performance art.  For seventeen years, he also taught in, and at various times chaired, the theatre arts department of Bethel College in St. Paul, MN, where he received the 1995 Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship. He served as Director of Education as well as director and performer at Lamb's Players Theatre in San Diego, California, for six years before moving to Gordon College in 2002.  Among his many directing credits are The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Busman's Honeymoon, Macbeth, Guys and Dolls, Shadowlands, Edith Stein and Forgiving Typhoid Mary.  His shows at Gordon include a new adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities, Tartuffe, The Secret Garden, An Evening of Pinter, and Sueño.

Jeanne Murray Walker – Professor of English at the University of Delaware, author of six books of poetry and many theatre scripts. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The American Poetry Review, The Nation, Commonweal, First Things, Image and other literary publications. Her writing has been honored with numerous awards including six Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Awards, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a coveted Pew Fellowship in The Arts. Walker’s plays have also been the recipient of many national theatre awards.. Her scripts have been produced in Boston, Washington, Chicago, throughout the Midwest and in London. She reads and teaches workshops at universities, churches, and writing conferences here and abroad.

Artists and Performers

Michael Kelly Blanchard – For more than twenty years Michael has written songs, prose, and plays which connect us to the merciful heart of God. As a solo performer on guitar and piano, Michael tells stories with a tender touch to help us laugh and cry at both the human condition and the renewing power of God's unconditional love. Raised in a Christian, arts-loving home, he saw firsthand the blending of belief with the blessings of creativity. He started writing songs in his early teens. This coincided with ever-expanding work as a performer in local clubs and coffeehouses. In his early twenties, he studied composition at Berklee College of Music, sharpening his music skills. Since then he has recorded ten albums, written two music dramas, one cantata and three novels.

New World Ceili Band - The New World Ceili (KAY-lee) Band will present an evening of traditional New England Contra Dancing.  All dance will be taught for beginners by the dance caller, Paul Rosenberg.

The band includes Dave Paton on the concertina, Jane Rothfield on the fiddle, Carl Radens on the cittern, and Mark Murphy on the bass and ‘cello.

Wear comfortable shoes, casual clothing, and be prepared to have FUN!

           
Tony Lawton - Founder of The Mirror Theatre Company, the mission statement of which is:  "Spiritual theatre for a secular audience."  He taught acting and directing for two years at the University of Notre Dame where he earned a B.A. in Classics and an M.F.A. in Acting from Temple University.  He has acted professionally for 13 years, mostly in Philadelphia.  He is well known for his one-man shows:  Shel Silverstein's "The Devil and Billy Markham," and his own adaptations of C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce" and "The Screwtape Letters," as well as Frederick Buechner's "Godric."

Thomas Brooks – Dr. Brooks is presently chair of the Department of Music and conductor of the Gordon College Choir and Chamber Singers, as well as Co-Director of music at the historic Park Street Church in Boston.  In the past three years he has conducted the Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island All-State Music Festivals and serves as president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. He is a former member of the music faculty at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Texas Tech University, the Hartt School of Music, and Mercyhurst College, having directed many choral and opera groups over the years.  As a conductor and clinician, Brooks has performed throughout the U. S., Canada and Europe, including such venues as Carnegie Hall in New York City, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Hall of Five Hundred in Florence.  He has co-produced a highly respected educational video series, Singing/Acting/Surviving.  He brings to his Summer Institute role a desire to involve amateurs and professionals alike in worship and performance opportunities. 

Amber Fort-Salladin will serve as worship accompanist and associate conductor for the Summer Institute.  She is accompanist for the Vancouver Bach Choir, BC, and formerly served in similar capacities at the University of Southern California and at Wheaton College, IL.  In addition, she is director of the Youth Choir at the Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach, a free music program to children and youth at risk in Vancouver's inner city. She serves as assistant director of music and worship at St. John’s Shaughnessy Anglican Church. She has been a lecturer and interim director of choral activities at Whittier College, a middle school music teacher, and a church adult choir director.  She has performed at various division conventions of the ACDA and on tour in both the US and UK.  Ms. Salladin holds the M.M. in Choral Music from the University of Southern California and the B.M.Ed. from the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music.