C.S. Lewis is most widely known for his fiction and his Christian apologetics. However, he was also a professor at Oxford—and later Cambridge—where he was a first-rate scholar of English literature. In his philosophical work, The Abolition of Man, Lewis argued that truth, beauty, and the good are not merely a matter of personal preference. Teaching such a view, Lewis warned, would lead to the abolition of man.
Lecturers
Larry P. Arnn is the twelfth president of Hillsdale College, where he is also a professor of politics and history. He received his B.A. from Arkansas State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School. He also studied at Worcester College, Oxford University, where he served as director of research for Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill. From 1985 to 2000, he served as president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. He serves on several boards of directors, and he previously served on the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors for two years for which he earned the Department of the Army’s “Outstanding Civilian Service Medal.” In 2015, he received the Bradley Prize from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. A member of numerous organizations including the Churchill Centre, he is the author of three books: Liberty and Learning: The Evolution of American Education; The Founders’ Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It; and, most recently, Churchill’s Trial: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government.
Michael Ward is a distinguished visiting professor at Hillsdale College, a fellow of Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, and professor of apologetics at Houston Baptist University. He studied English at Oxford, theology at the University of Cambridge, and he has a Ph.D. in divinity from the University of St. Andrews. He served as chaplain of St. Peter’s College, Oxford, from 2009 to 2012, and of Peterhouse, Cambridge, from 2004 to 2007. He is the author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (Oxford University Press), co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis (Cambridge University Press), and presenter of the BBC television documentary, The Narnia Code. On the 50th anniversary of Lewis’s death, November 22, 2013, Dr. Ward unveiled a permanent national memorial to him in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, London.
David Whalen is a professor of English at Hillsdale College, where he also serves as provost. Dr. Whalen obtained his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Kansas. He has taught at the University of Kansas and Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina. He teaches courses on the great books as well as Renaissance literature, the English novel, and the history and literature of liberal education. Dr. Whalen has written articles on numerous topics, including Victorian prose, Renaissance poetry, educational philosophy, and the writings of John Henry Newman. Among other honors, he has received a Salvatori Fellowship from the Heritage Foundation and a Weaver Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He is also a recipient of the Daugherty Teaching Award from Hillsdale College.