IQ 8: AY25-26 Fellows, Lewis & Service Learning, the Inklings & Spiritual Direction
Inklings Quarterly
August 14, 2025
Introducing the AY25-26 Inklings Project Fellows
Thank you to everyone who applied for this year’s Inklings Project Fellowship. We continue to be impressed by and grateful for the large number of wonderful faculty who apply for the fellowship.
We are thrilled to introduce our AY25-26 Inklings Project Fellows. Drawn from eleven different colleges/universities and a number of academic disciplines, these faculty are teaching Inklings courses that are innovative, engaging, and joyful at their core.
You can read more about this year’s fellows and previous years’ fellows in future editions of the Inklings Quarterly. You can also view their syllabi, along with a number of other faculty syllabi, in the Syllabi Repository.
From a Fellow
Dr. Yuliia Vintoniv, AY24-25 Inklings Project Fellow
Lecturer at the Department of Pastoral Theology, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv, Ukraine)
Interview with Dr. Yuliia Vintoniv | Teaching C. S. Lewis & Service Learning in Ukraine
One of the fellows from our AY24-25 Cohort of Inklings Project Fellows is Dr. Yulia Vintoniv, a theologian and lecturer based in Ukraine. Dr. Vintoniv teaches a seminar course titled “Conversations with C. S. Lewis: A Journey into the World of Faith, Reason, and Imagination,” which invites students to explore Lewis’s works through reading, discussion, and service-learning projects. Drawing on her doctoral research on the experience of Godforsakenness, she engages students in conversations that bridge literature, theology, and lived experience - a dialogue made especially touching in the context of wartime in Ukraine. Below, we were able to ask her a few questions about her work and teaching.
When did you start enjoying the works of the Inklings?
My acquaintance with the Inklings, as probably for many others, began in childhood, after watching The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Back then, I understood little about that mysterious world of fantasy and the struggle between good and evil, but the strong female characters—both Lucy and Arwen deeply inspired me as a little girl.
Later, at the age of nineteen, when I came to Christianity, I became interested in the writings of C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton. I started reading their philosophical and theological books, like The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters, The Everlasting Man, and Orthodoxy. And then, it seemed, God decided to play a little joke on me: I entered a master’s program in ecumenical studies, and later a doctoral program in theology. I wanted to write about rebellion against God as an expression of honesty and vulnerability. That’s when I remembered Lewis’ A Grief Observed and it became part of my dissertation research on the experience of Godforsakenness.
I began writing my dissertation in 2016, when the war in eastern Ukraine had already been going on for two years. Even then, I wished my topic were irrelevant—but later, COVID-19 and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine made it not only relevant, but almost tangible. Often it was Lewis, who had lived through two world wars, lost friends, and endured a personal crisis of faith, who became for me not merely an academic subject, but a friend and a conversation partner.
Lewis still helps me remain honest in my relationship with God …even if that honesty means telling Him that I am in so much pain I would rather not believe in Him.
Can you tell us about your Inklings-related course?
The course I teach is centered on the work of C. S. Lewis. Initially, it was titled “C. S. Lewis: Faith, Doubt, and Joy.” I wanted to highlight these three key aspects of his writing and spirituality. Later, after some reflection, I decided that Lewis could speak for himself more directly and deeper. So, I reshaped the course into a series of seminar-style sessions, where each meeting was devoted to reading and discussing one of his texts. The course changed into “Conversations with C. S. Lewis: A Journey into the World of Faith, Reason, and Imagination.”
We explore his early poetry, written when he was just 19 and already a veteran of the First World War; his apologetic works, which can at times feel overly precise or even rigorous; and then we read his "question-mark texts,” Letters to Malcolm and A Grief Observed—we met Lewis with all of those questions, struggling as we are.
What is your student population like? How do they receive Lewis' works?
I had a group of students from different university programs—journalists, psychologists, IT specialists, historians—and this diversity made our seminar discussions truly multi-faceted. Everyone could find something personal in Lewis’ works and share it with the others.
What struck me most, however, was when we read A Grief Observed. To be honest, I was hesitant to assign this text. It feels painfully close to Ukrainians today, when almost every family is grieving the loss of someone to the war.
And yet, we had a profound and moving conversation, one that felt more like a support group than a traditional seminar. I am deeply grateful to my students for the honesty and vulnerability they brought into that discussion.
What is service learning? Can you tell us about a few of the service projects your students completed during this course
Service learning methodology is learning through practice. I truly love this approach because students become agents of social change, and I watch with excitement as they make the impossible happen.
In this course, our partner was Svichado Publishing House, which translates and publishes Lewis’ works in Ukraine. It’s a small publisher, doing everything possible (and often impossible) to popularize Lewis’ writings, yet sometimes their resources are simply not enough.
The students, working in groups, had to design a project to promote Lewis’ work. By the end of the semester, I was impressed with the results. A group of IT students created a chatbot with Lewis’ quotes and links to his books at the publisher’s website. It still needs some fine-tuning, but the idea that every day a person could receive inspiration from Lewis is wonderful.
Another group, led by psychology students, went to a psychiatric hospital, where together with soldiers and veterans they read pieces from Lewis on friendship. Honestly, I was quite anxious for this group, but everything went beautifully—they had a meaningful and fruitful conversation.
One more group recorded a series of podcasts on Lewis’ work with the priest of the Ukrainian Catholic University, while another group read Lewis during the traditional painting of pysanky (Ukrainian Easter eggs), a special ritual during Lent. And one more student-enthusiast decided to launch an advertising campaign for Lewis in cooperation with the publisher.
Do you have any advice or suggestions for other instructors who incorporate service learning?
Don’t be afraid of this methodology. Yes, it takes more time than traditional teaching, but the results will truly surprise you. I am always inspired by my students’ work. Honestly, it helps me keep going and never lose heart.
Is there anything you would like to share about your time as an Inklings Project Fellow?
This is a group of enthusiasts who not only strive to teach, but to create something close to a miracle, inspiring their students to love learning. It’s a wonderful opportunity to be part of a community of like-minded people who share a passion for the works of the Inklings, and I am truly grateful to belong to it.
From a Fellow
Dr. Carolyn Weber | AY24-25 Inklings Project Fellow
Fellow,Trivium and Humanities, New College Franklin (Franklin, Tennessee)
C. S. Lewis and Spiritual Formation
I remember exactly where I was the first time I began reading C. S. Lewis’ seminal work Mere Christianity. On stone steps worn into polished concaves by centuries of hungry students before me, I perched just outside my college dining hall at Oxford University.
“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.”
Lewis’ statement echoed in my head. From my literary studies, I was familiar with the medieval concept of the Great Chain of Being, a hierarchical structure along which all living things held their rightful place in creation, as ordained by God. At the bottom were minerals, or inanimate objects (without animation or a soul), followed by the order of animated ones, from plants, then, humans, through the higher ranks to angels and finally, at the top, God. Such a “chain,” however, surely seemed juvenile to a modern mind. For one, it presupposed angelic beings, and even a God. That seemed a stretch for many. Why not end with humans, and call it simply a food chain? And for another, humans seemed stuck in a fairly deterministic mediocre spot.
And yet, upon more reflection, movement along this chain didn’t seem that archaic or irrelevant a concept to me, even before I had become a Christian. Afterall, one would hope to become a “better” person, a more developed being, rather than a less reflective, moral or merely “animalistic” one. But to what end? For what telos?
For Christians, however, through their wills, humans could either move toward the brutish or the divine. We could choose to meet animalist desires or we could choose to pursue sanctification in growing closer to God, through the development of virtues, character and a love of holiness.
As someone just starting to test the waters of the Christian faith in a personal sense, Lewis’ words inspired me to consider just what these thinkers of old might have been on to. Lewis continues to write:
And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.
I had never thought of each decision as having so much power before. I had never thought of how much power and freedom Romans 12:2 allotted us: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” And I certainly hadn’t thought that it was happening to me at that very moment.
Spiritual formation – the desire to grow more like Christ and more toward Christ – begins with the very kernel that we cannot see and yet the only thing that we can truly control: our thoughts, and within that, what we decide to think. And from these thoughts grow our wills, as they shift from idea to action. The free will we have been given by God becomes the gift we give back to Him freely and willingly when we realize our purpose is indeed fulfilled in glorifying Him and enjoying Him forever.
As Dallas Willard warns, however, we need to take care not to associate spiritual formation with works – we cannot achieve sanctification on our own, nor can we earn grace. Spiritual formation is not a “checklist” of things to do to grow closer to God, nor is it a series of tests or hoops to go through to earn grace. Rather, it is a transformation not just of the mind, but most importantly of the heart – the heart that earnestly seeks God will find help, solace, direction, in such processes or exercises as a pathway, not as the answers in themselves.
As I continued to read more and more of Lewis, and then of his fellow Inklings, including Sayers and Tolkien, as well as MacDonald and Chesterton who so influenced them, I began to see this emphasis on the mind-heart connection. Thoughts can only take us so far: they are the important germ of transformation, but the end goal is the heart. Thought springs from the freedom of mind we’ve been given; it is proof, indeed, of grace that no one else can read our thoughts, except for God alone. And from freedom’s thought comes the fruit, or lack thereof, of the spirit. We can move along this chain, not in a way that supplants a seemly order, but in a way that shows how the order is there so that we may be attuned to it and grow closer to God in our individual selves as well.
Sometime after I left those time-worn steps, I would become a Christian, compelled first by grace, but then by other details such as these expressed by the Inklings, too beautiful and powerful and intricate for myself to have ever imagined. Years later, as an Inklings Scholar myself (what a circle of grace!), I would return to read more of Lewis’ lesser-known works, his shorter essays and sermons, for instance, which I had overlooked amidst his novels and longer studies. It was in these shorter works and especially his own college sermons that I found a helpful focus on specific steps in the spiritual formation movement. His topics range from recognizing our “rings” of personal politics to the need for humility to the simplification of the power of prayer, and so I realized, again, how important and what a gift of a “shift” every single thought, and so every single decision, offers.
“Without contraries is no progression.” The Romantic poet William Blake states this embracing of paradox in his poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. This same work notably influenced Lewis’ The Great Divorce, arguably his most extensive meditation on the single most important decision there is. We sit at the crux of contraries when we weigh our own will and God’s separately. In bringing these contraries together, we find ourselves within the holy harmony of progressing toward heaven while yet on this side of it; we find our way home, further up and further in, toward “joy, peace, knowledge and power.”
A Few Recommendations from Carolyn:
I recommend two collections of Lewis’ essays that have been put out by HarperOne: The Weight of Glory and Other Essays, and The World’s Last Night and Other Essays. Both eponymous essays are thought-provoking and perspective giving. The Weight of Glory has received more critical attention. “On Forgiveness” for instance is a key shorter essay that encourages us to look at the difference between asking God for forgiveness as opposed to asking Him to excuse us. We may wish to ask ourselves what is the difference between forgiveness and excusing? Lewis gave a sermon entitled “A Slip of theTongue” in Magdalen College chapel in 1956 which also calls for self examination in our prayer life. How can we be honest in our prayers, and really consider phrases that we might take for granted? In the essay “Lilies that Fester”, whose title Lewis takes from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94, Lewis considers the pride that results from acquiring knowledge, and how even finery can become drudgery, or decaying lilies smell worse than weeds, when we hide behind spiritual pride. In what ways might our achievements become trappings? Or even our Bible knowledge become weaponized? What I appreciate so much in these seemingly little essays is that they each pack quite a punch, and welcome difficult but important questions into the very crevices of our spiritual selves.
Call for Papers
International Conference on War, Fellowship, and Survival in theLives and Works of C.S. Lewis and Kindred Spirits
Conference Dates: June 11-13, 2026 | Submission Deadline for Papers: November 15, 2025
Dr. Anne-Frédérique Caballero (University of Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France), an AY24-25 Inklings Project Fellow, and Dr. Sharon Jones (Stranmillis University College, Belfast, Northern Ireland), an AY23-24 Inklings Project Fellow, are part of a committee that is planning the second-ever C. S. Lewis Conference in France, the first to take place in over a decade.
The committee welcomes papers on war and its consequences in C. S. Lewis’ and his kindred spirits’ writings. World War I will be given special emphasis but papers can also deal with World War II, which is a prevalent background and source of inspiration in numerous works by Lewis, Tolkien, Charles Williams and others, even if they did not physically fight in it. War can also be envisaged in more general terms, as a moral and spiritual battleground.
Scholars from all disciplines, including literature, history, theology, philosophy, and cultural studies, are invited to submit proposals for papers. Conference presentations should be in English and will be allocated 20 minutes each.
Please send all proposals and inquiries to cslconf2026@gmail.com with the subject line "Conference Proposal Submission." You can also visit the conference website (link here) for more information.
Quarterly Highlights
Inspiration: “Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun.” – C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time” (Read the full pdf here.)
Resource: In a recent podcast episode, “C. S. Lewis from Dante and the Medieval World,” Dr. Leonard DeLorenzo, the Director of the Inklings Project and Professor of the Practice in the McGrath Institute for Church Life, talks to Dr. Jason Baxter about the influence the Medieval world had on C. S. Lewis
Event: Fellowship of Performing Arts’ Campus Initiative is bringing FPA’s national hit shows to campuses around the United States. Check out the location and dates for this coming fall semester below. The following discounts are available: $5 tickets for college/university students and campus ministers at any campus show, $30 tickets for anyone under the age of 30, college/university faculty and staff discounts. If you are interested in bringing a group of students or if you have any questions, you can read more here or reach out to Whitney Bahr, the Campus Initiative Manager, at whitney@fpatheatre.com.
October 7th at 7:30 PM – Appalachian State University, Schaeffer Center for the Performing Arts
October 22nd at 7:30 PM – Purdue University, Loeb Playhouse
November 5th at 7:30 PM – University of Notre Dame, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
Interested in supporting the Inklings Project?
The Inklings Project exists because of the generosity of individuals. To make a one-time or recurring donation to the Inklings Project, please visit giving.nd.edu/inklings, or call 574-631-7164.
The University of Notre Dame is a 501(c) (3) tax exempt nonprofit corporation.
For past issues of the Inklings Quarterly, visit www.inklingsproject.org/quarterly.
