Wycliffe Hall Summer School 2025
Prof. Alister McGrath
Renowned theologian and Christian apologist, Alister is the author of C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet. As former Principal of Wycliffe Hall we look forward to welcoming him back and hearing him speak on this well-loved subject.
Prof. Simon Horobin
Professor of English Language & Literature at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow of Magdalen College; Simon has recently released C.S Lewis' Oxford and will be joining us to speak about the role of the city in shaping Lewis' thoughts and works.
The Gala Dinner will be at Magdalen College, where both Simon and C.S Lewis have taught.
Dr Amanda B. Vernon
Dr. Kirstin Jeffery Johnson
Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson writes and lectures internationally on MacDonald, the Inklings, the 19th century, and Faith & the Arts. Together we will explore the ways in which MacDonald's writing -- as Lewis claimed -- “baptized my imagination" and rescued him from the “darker and more evil forms” of Romanticism that were beginning to cast their spell upon him as a young man.
The spell is one of C.S. Lewis’s most characteristic metaphors – that which holds Prince Rilian in its enchanting drowsiness in The Silver Chair, the whole of Narnia in its wintry grip in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the whole natural order in its endless circularity in his poem, ‘What the bird said early in the year’.
It is an apt metaphor for our generation, prevented (by the spell upon us and the stories told us) from exploring a more multi-dimensional world, and a grounded hope – and therefore locked up in the prospect of inescapable injustice and irreversible loss.
Wycliffe Hall’s vision for a new Renaissance aims to help break that spell (with rigorous scholarship) and to tell a more compelling story (with creativity and beauty). Lewis – both as scholar and as creative writer – is a useful model for us as we seek to foster belief in a bigger world, and hope for a loss-reversing future.
This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell,
We shall escape the circling and undo the spell.
-What the Bird Said Early in the Year, C.S. Lewis
Registration
This event is now fully booked. Please email conferences@wycliffe.ox.ac.uk if you wish to be added to a waiting list in case places become available.
Full delegate fee: US$2050
The delegate fee includes admission to all morning teaching, four afternoon excursions, including admission fees to historic/cultural sites visited with the group, lunches Monday - Friday, a welcome dinner on Sunday and the Gala Dinner. It does not include accommodation, which can be booked separately at Wycliffe Hall or elsewhere, travel to/from Oxford or other meals. UK VAT is included in the fee.
Registering below will pay the entire fee to purchase a ticket. If you would rather pay just the deposit, please contact us separately.
Cancellation policy
Full payment will usually be taken on booking, which includes a non-refundable deposit of US$512.50 (25% of the total registration fee) . If preferred, separate arrangements can be made to pay only the deposit on booking, with the balance due by 30 June 2025. Cancellations may be made by emailing us on conferences@wycliffe.ox.ac.uk until 30 June 2025 for a refund of any amount paid above the deposit.