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SPEAKERS 2003
Verlyn Flieger
Verlyn Flieger is a Professor in the Department of English at the University
of Maryland at College Park. She is a specialist in myth studies and
comparative mythology. She teaches a sequence of graduate and undergraduate
myth courses which offer Celtic myth, Arthurian myth, Hindu myth, Native
American myth, and Norse myth. A popular speaker at conferences on myth and
the Inklings, Dr. Flieger has written and published extensively on J. R. R.
Tolkien and various of his fellow Inklings in academic papers, book reviews,
and chapters in books. Among her own published books she's written or edited
are Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World (1983), A
Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien's Road to Faërie (1998), and Tolkien's
Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-Earth (2002), the last two each
recipients of the year's Mythopoeic Award for Inklings Studies.
Paul Leggett
Paul Leggett is pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Montclair, New Jersey.
He's also served churches in Philadelphia and worked for eight years in
mission work, four of which he spent teaching at the Latin American Biblical
Seminary in San Jose, Costa Rica. He have been interested in fantasy and
supernatural films his whole life, having lectured on film at Vassar College
and written numerous articles on the subject (in both English and Spanish).
His book
Terence Fisher: Horror, Myth and Religion was published in
2001 on McFarland & Company.
Rod Bennett
First, there was Wonder magazine, a loving tribute to monster movies,
science fiction, Ray Bradbury, Frank Capra, and C.S. Lewis, with sidetrips to
roadside attractions like Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not Museums, a history of
Miniature golf, and a back page "column" every issue by G.K. Chesterton.
After we saw Wonder, we created the Cornerstone Festival
"Imaginarium". Rod was in on that first Imaginarium and has been a part of
the team ever since, contributing lectures with titles like "God's Haunted
House" and "King Kong Died For Your Sins," teaching us how to apply that
Chestertonian sense of wonder and wry cultural criticism to such things as
monster movies and tv.
Terry Wandtke
Specializing in 20th-century literature, film and popular culture studies,
Terrence Wandtke is a professor in the Communication Arts Department of
Judson College. He has been involved with the St. Louis International Film
Festival's Interfaith Award and organized the 1st and 2nd Annual St. Louis
Faith and Film Conference. He is currently writing a book on spirituality and
aesthetics in the films of David Lynch.
David Lavery
David Lavery is professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University in
Tennessee. He wrote his dissertation on Frederico Fellini, and his literary
specialties include poet Wallace Stevens and Owen Barfield, the close friend
(and fellow "Inkling") of C. S. Lewis. Dr. Lavery helped create the film
Owen Barfield: Man & Meaning. Despite these more reputable pursuits,
Lavery's career was hijacked by television and popular culture when he was
exposed to David Lynch's Twin Peaks, which led to his book Full of Secrets:
Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks, and a host of books following, including:
Deny All Knowledge: Reading The X-Files, and Fighting the Forces: What's At
Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, This Thing of Ours: Investigating "The
Sopranos, and he is currently working on a book on Seinfeld. Prof. Lavery was
featured in a recent cover Nashville Tennesseean cover story ("Professor who
used to scorn TV now studies It"). He's also addicted to web-publishing,
running a variety of sites from one devoted to Wallace Stevens to
owenbarfield.com to Slayage (dedicated to Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Dr.
Lavery is spearheading a conference on Buffy at his university in May of
2004. Seminars:
Louis Markos
Louis Markos is Professor in English at Houston Baptist University, where he
offers courses on literary theory, the classics, British Romantic Poetry,
Victorian and 17th century poetry and prose, mythology, epic and film. Dr.
Markos is "a humanist Christian," committed first to Christian orthodoxy but
also to the classical tradition, straddling Athens and Jerusalem in hopes of
bringing them together. Drawing upon his Greek Orthodox roots, Markos
believes in the incarnational nature of divine communication, seeking truth
in all manner of imaginative works. Following these humanist and
incarnational inclinations, this award-winning teacher feels a responsibility
to take education outside the halls of academia, frequently lecturing in
popular venues and creating tape series for The Teaching Company on subjects
from literary theory to C. S. Lewis. His book Lewis Agonistes: Wrestling
with the Modern and Postmodern World will be published by Broadman & Holman
later this year.
John Morehead
John Morehead is associate director of Watchman Fellowship, an educational
organization that specializes in new religious movements. Long dissatisfied
with mainstream Evangelical outreach to "cults," John helped found the
Sacred Tribes Journal as a way of exploring a more sensitive and
holistic approach to understanding and communicating with non-traditional
religious groups. As a part of his approach to religious groups, John is
especially concerned with a more sophisticated understanding and
interpretation of the symbols employed by groups and entire cultures. Thus
his interest dovetails neatly with the Imaginarium, which follows C. S. Lewis
and friends in taking a more mythic angle on the popular arts. Not just a
theological egghead, John is a pop culture junkie with a whole range of
dubious tastes, and he's grateful to the Imaginarium for helping him see how
monster movies can now be placed safely under the rubric of "missiological
discourse."
Chris Armstrong
Chris Armstrong is managing editor of Christian
History magazine, whose most recent issue explores Tolkien's life and Christian imagination. Chris grew up in Nova Scotia, Canada. After graduate work in church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts and Duke University in North Carolina, he is now branded with the quasi-magical letters "Ph.D." However, he continues to live a decidedly ordinary life in Elgin, Illinois with his wife, Sharon, and five children, Kate, Caleb, Grace, Rosie, and John Allen. They've all joined him for their first Cornerstone Festival.
© 2003 Cornerstone Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
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