Author: Lewis Tolkien Society

Annual Thomas More Lecture, October 4

Hello Everyone, we are excited to announce our annual Thomas More Lecture in collaboration with the University of Dallas. Please see the flyer below and REGISTER NOW to attend.

               Also, we are continuing our hiatus for Text & Talk, so there will not be Text & Talk tomorrow. Don’t worry, though, soon we will be announcing future special speakers.
 
               We hope to see you at the October 4th Thomas More lecture. And DON’T FORGET, put Saturday, November 22 on your calendar for our LTS Annual Dinner. Our speaker this year will be Dr. Melinda Nielsen
Associate Professor of literature in the Great Texts Program at Baylor University. More to come soon on the Dinner but SAVE SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22 NOW!  

Lewis Tolkien Society 

Annual Thomas More Lecture

Saturday, 12 noon, October 4

University of Dallas

Gorman Faculty Lounge

Presented by

Dr. Gregory Roper

“Literature’s Power and Chaucer as Critique”

Sponsored. In conjunction with the University of Dallas English Department, by   

The Lewis Tolkien Society for the Renewal of the Common Tradition 



“Saving Western Civilization”

Society Members, University of Dallas community members, friends of literature and learning, graduates and undergraduates are invited to attend Dr. Roper’s lecture followed by a complimentary lunch and a colloquium on truth and imagination. The lecture is sponsored with the University of Dallas English Department by the Lewis Tolkien Society of Dallas (founded 2015).

Please register to attend by following this → link.

 

Lewis Tolkien Society NEWSLETTER – September 2025

Upcoming classes, events, and lectures…

see stories at the link below

  • Short courses beginning September 15 on Homer’s Iliad and Metaphysics (the philosophy of being)
  • Thomas More Lecture to be held at the University of Dallas on Saturday, October 4
  • The 44th Lewis Tolkien Annual Dinner and Lecture: Baylor University classics professor Dr. Melinda Nielsen invited speaker
  • Oxford Studies Program proposed for August 2026

Please read the September 2025 Newsletter here.

Text & Talk, July 26: Dr. Stewart Goetz on C. S. Lewis and Higher Education

This Saturday, July 26 at 12:00 noon, via Zoom…

C. S. Lewis and Higher Education

Saturday, July 26, 2025 at Noon Central
Via Zoom

Dear Society Members, Friends, and Supporters,

This Saturday, July 26, Dr. Stewart Goetz, Ursinus College (Penn) emeritus professor of philosophy, will present a second lecture entitled “C. S. Lewis on Higher Education.” Everyone is invited to “attend” the lecture by connecting to the LTS calendar page, clicking on Saturday, July 26, and joining the session at:

Lewis Tolkien Society Calendar

Dr. Goetz will discuss his work C.S. Lewis on Higher Education: The Pedagogy of Pleasure which explores Lewis’s contention that colleges (like his own Magdalen College) do not exist in order to teach students but rather as institutions devoted to the discovery of knowledge, a purpose in itself pleasing to and attracting students.

A review of Dr. Goetz’s book is available here.

Last week, Dr. Goetz discussed how Lewis viewed pleasure and pain in a way that was sympathetic to hedonism. Nevertheless, he held that there are other goods – especially justice – which should be pursued even when painful for one’s own well being. Noting Lewis’s disagreement with the Kantian position that moral responses are best when undertaken without reference to positive feelings of satisfaction or delight in the good, Dr. Goetz argued that Lewis also held misgivings about ethics based on self-fulfillment, even in scrupulous religiosity or striving for virtue.

To watch Dr. Goetz’s July 19th presentation, click this link. Passcode: EwaV9*?R

Participate via Zoom by connecting to the LTS calendar page and clicking on the date for the Text and Talk.

Please note that Text and Talk sessions will not be held in August during summer break.


Meeting information on the website

Text & Talk, July 19: Dr. Stewart Goetz on Lewis and eudaimonism

This Saturday, July 12, 12:00 noon at the Cambridge School or via Zoom…

Dr.  Stewart Goetz on Lewis and eudaimonism

Dear Society Members, Friends, and Supporters,

The Lewis Tolkien Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Stewart Goetz, professor of philosophy at Ursinus College (Pennsylvania), will present a special lecture titled “C. S. Lewis on Pleasure and Happiness,” the title of a recent essay. 

Join the session by attending in person at the Cambridge School or join via zoom at  https://www.lewistolkiensociety.org/lts-calendar/

Dr. Goetz will discuss how Lewis viewed the way that good feeling (pleasure and happiness) accompanies the growth of the person in virtue, rejecting the Kantian position that moral responses are best when undertaken without reference to positive feelings of satisfaction or delight in the good.

Dr. Goetz’s essay is available here: https://christianscholars.com/c-s-lewis-on-pleasure-and-happiness/

Our next session will be held at the modern campus of the Cambridge School located at the intersection of Royal Lane and Webb Chapel.  To participate in person, enter the academic building (by the circle adjacent to the parking lot), take the elevator down the hall to the second floor.  Exit, turn right.  then left at the end of the walkway.  

Participate via Zoom by connecting to the LTS calendar page and clicking on the date for the Text and Talk. 


Meeting information on the website

Text & Talk, July 12: Economics: The Teachings of the Austrian School

This Saturday, July 12, 12:00 noon at the Cambridge School or via Zoom…

Economics: The Teachings of the Austrian School

Dear Society Members, Friends, and Supporters,

This Saturday, the Lewis Tolkien Society will focus on the Austrian school of economics which built upon the insights of the Spanish scholastics of the 16th century to advance our modern understanding of economics. Join LTS board members Bill de Decker and Dr. Ron Muller as they review the basic principles of economics as the science of commerce and exchange promoting the optimal allocation of resources for the improvement of the human estate.

Topics

What is economics? How does it always involve human actions and decisions? Is economics an empirical or theoretical science?

How is economics related to political philosophy?

How is economics related to Christian social teaching?

Our next session will be held at the modern campus of the Cambridge School located at the intersection of Royal Lane and Webb Chapel.  To participate in person, enter the academic building (by the circle adjacent to the parking lot), take the elevator down the hall to the second floor.  Exit, turn right.  then left at the end of the walkway.  

Participate via Zoom by connecting to the LTS calendar page and clicking on the date for the Text and Talk. 


Meeting information on the website

Text & Talk, June 28: Economics: From Rome to the Austrian School

This Saturday, June 28, at the Cambridge School or via Zoom…

Economics: From Rome to the Austrian School

Dear Society Members, Friends, and Supporters,

This Saturday, the Lewis Tolkien Society will sponsor a conversation about economics, its development and history, and its status as a science. Join LTS Board members, Mr. Bill de Decker and Dr. Ron Muller, as they review how modern economics grew from the Roman period through late Scholasticism and the Renaissance to Adam Smith and the Austrian School. 

Topics

  • What is economics and what phenomena does it study?
  • How did the adoption of Arabic numerals led to the advance of accounting, banking, and commerce
  • How questions raised by the late Scholastic philosophers at Salamanca clarified economic principles regarding supply and demand, prices, inflation, and monetary theory
  • How economics as a science from Adam Smith to the Austrian School.

Our next session will be held at the modern campus of the Cambridge School located at the intersection of Royal Lane and Webb Chapel.  To participate in person, enter the academic building (by the circle adjacent to the parking lot), take the elevator down the hall to the second floor.  Exit, turn right.  then left at the end of the walkway.  

Participate via Zoom by connecting to the LTS calendar page and clicking on the date for the Text and Talk. 


Meeting information on the website

Text & Talk, June 21: Envisioning a Bright Future for Lewis Tolkien 

This Saturday, June 21, at the Cambridge School or via Zoom…

Envisioning a Bright Future for Lewis Tolkien 

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Please make plans to join the LTS Board of Directors this Saturday, June 21, as we  build on Dr. Patrick’s legacy, look to the future, and explore new academic programs for the coming year.   Dr. Ron Muller will present a proposal to expand LTS lectures and short courses for Society members to delve more deeply into the relationship between Christian teaching and contemporary issues through a greater understanding of the liberal disciplines of theology, philosophy, literature, and history.   

Bill de Decker and Dr. Muller on economics, accounting, and the Austrian School of Economics

Our next session will be held at the modern campus of the Cambridge School located at the intersection of Royal Lane and Webb Chapel.  To participate in person, enter the academic building (by the circle adjacent to the parking lot), take the elevator down the hall to the second floor.  Exit, turn right.  then left at the end of the walkway.  

Participate via Zoom by connecting to the LTS calendar page and clicking on the date for the Text and Talk. 


Meeting information on the website

Text & Talk, June 14: Dr. Patrick on Lewis

This Saturday, June 14, at the Cambridge School or via Zoom…

Dr. Patrick on Lewis

Dear Friends and Supporters,

This Saturday, our review of  Dr. Patrick’s book The Magdalen Metaphysicals: Idealism and Orthodoxy at Oxford, 1901-1945 will focus on how the intellectual currents at the beginning of the last century influenced Christianity’s great apologist C. S. Lewis.  Recounting Lewis’ engagement first with atheism and the views of British realism, Dr. Patrick describes how the nature of the desire and human longing led Lewis–through the legacy of Idealism– to see the truth of Christianity.

Topics:

How Lewis was influenced to accept the realism of Carritt.

How Lewis came to see the importance of thought, meaning, and human endeavor in the philosophy of idealism.

How, rejecting the reductionistic analysis of Freud and the realists, Lewis found the “middle way” through literature as explained in Pilgrim’s Regress.

Our next session will be held at the modern campus of the Cambridge School located at the intersection of Royal Lane and Webb Chapel.  To participate in person, enter the academic building (by the circle adjacent to the parking lot), take the elevator to the second floor, and turn right then left at the end of the hall. Participate via Zoom by connecting to the LTS calendar page and clicking on the date for the Text and Talk. 


Meeting information on the website