Wycliffe Hall Summer School 2025

Undoing the Spell - C.S. Lewis and the undeceiving of our generation

Sunday 31 August - Friday 5 September
Wycliffe Hall, Oxford

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

 

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.

ss25 undoing the spell a5

Speakers include: Alister McGrath, Michael Lloyd and Jonathan Brant. 

Registration

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.

 

Cancellation policy

A non-refundable deposit of US$512.50 (25% of the total registration fee) is due on booking. Full payment can be made if preferred.  If only the deposit is paid, the balance is 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.

 

Register now