Whereas the fantasy fiction of Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, and William Golding, who all experienced WWII, is dark and lacks hope, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, who fought in WWI, created hopeful fantasies. In this session, literary scholar Louis Markos will discuss the events in the lives of Lewis and Tolkien that shaped them into the creators of Narnia and Middle-earth; consider Tolkien’s defense of escapism and eucatastrophe; and locate the Christian virtue of hope in The Lord of the Rings and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Speaker: Dr. Louis Markos (Ph.D., Univ. of Michigan), Robert H. Ray Professor of Humanities, Houston Christian University