Sehnsucht *

*desire, yearning for the transcendent; an experience of transcendent joy

"...the perfect title for a CSL journal!"

―Walter Hooper

Subscription to Sehnsucht

The C.S. Lewis Journal

PURPOSE: Sehnsucht exists to promote literary, theological, philosophical, historical, biographical, and cultural interest (broadly defined) in Lewis and his work.

SCOPE: The journal will include articles, book reviews, film critiques, editorials, and announcements of Lewis-related conferences, events, and publications and is aimed at academic scholars from a variety of disciplines as well as learned non-scholars.

FORMAT: One or two issues per year, 75–100 pages (or approximately 25,000–30,000 words), printed and bound.

PRICE: $20 annually; students $10; institutions $30.

What People Are Saying

Walter Hooper declared that Volume 1 of Sehnsucht was, “STUNNING! There is not even a paperback edition of Lewis’ own writings that can compare with it. Everything about it is first class. Congratulations!”

David Downing wrote, “It is a handsomely-produced volume with some intriguing articles, so you all should be justly proud for getting the publication launched….I think you all are off to a promising start!”

Volume 1, Number 1, 2007

Contents:

Editor’s Note, Grayson Carter, Fuller Theological Seminary, Southwest

Reflections of an Editor, Walter Hooper, Oxford, England

A Time for Joy: The Ancestry and Apologetic Force of C. S. Lewis’ Sehnsucht, James P. Helfers, Grand Canyon University

Reading the Middle Ages: The “Postmodern” Medievalism of C. S. Lewis, Charles Connell, Northern Arizona University

Grooving a Symbol: Turkish Delight in Narnia, Del Kehl, Arizona State University

Defending the Dangerous Idea: An Update on C. S. Lewis’ Argument from Reason, Victor Reppert, Glendale Community College

All My Dogs Before Me, Bruce R. Johnson, Scottsdale Presbyterian Church

Review of Louis Markos, Lewis Agonistes, William Gentrup, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Volume 2, Number 1 (2008)

Volume 2 of Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal will include an annotated transcription of a long-forgotten radio program, Beyond Personality: A Memoir of C. S. Lewis, which was broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio Four in 1988. This program contains the recorded voices of a number of C. S. Lewis’ former colleagues, pupils and friends, offering their personal recollections of a man they both admired and respected. Beyond Personality likewise offers a number of new and original perspectives on Lewis and his writings. In doing so, it attempts to chart something of a middle course between the extremes of hagiography and reductionism. While its contributors clearly admire Lewis and his literary and religious accomplishments, some speculate openly about the limitations of his influence, his shortcomings as a writer, philosopher and Christian apologist, and the nature of his personal idiosyncrasies and occasional social blunders. Beyond Personality thus provides a portrait of Lewis that is, at the same time, both admiring and critical.