Three English Department professors each share five story recommendations during Education Week.
The Must-Reads of C. S. Lewis
by Emma Mafi
For years, countless General Conference talks have quoted a writer who consistently finds beautiful and moving ways to explain even the most difficult of religious concepts: C. S. Lewis. Lewis wrote over 30 books in his lifetime, many of which have Christian morals and messages embedded throughout the story. In his lecture titled “The Five Best Works of C. S. Lewis That You Probably Haven’t Read,” given on August 21, 2024, Professor Paul Westover (Literary Tourism) shared five of his favorite lesser-known C. S. Lewis texts with the hopes of inspiring people to look deeper into Lewis’s work.
After much contemplation, Westover narrowed down his favorite books (for now) and presented five of C. S. Lewis’s best works:
- The Great Divorce
- A Grief Observed
- The Weight of Glory
- Perelandra
- God in the Dock
Westover loves these five texts (and all of Lewis’s writings in general) because, as he said, “Lewis wasn’t letting Christianity speak to him on the level of story, on the level of myth. He wasn’t looking along religion—he was looking at it.”
Though Westover doesn’t consult these books to learn doctrine, he finds that they’re “a little bit like the brother of Jared: anything the Lord touches lights up, and that includes good books and it includes readers.” Westover concluded, “These books, for me, have been companions for many years. I cannot exhaust them; I keep returning to them, and so I would love to share some of that joy with as many people as I can.”
Fairy-Tale Justice
by Tessa Swensen
Fairy tales—what purpose do they serve? According to Associate Professor Jill Rudy (Folklore), they are meant to teach. On August 23, 2024, Rudy spoke on the endurance of fairy tales in a lecture titled “Five Best Cinderella Stories before 1900.” Rudy explored the global origins of the Cinderella tale, emphasizing its role as a tale of resilience and justice, as well as its enduring appeal as a story of hope.
Rudy began by noting that “many scholars refer to Yeh-Shen from China. . . as one of the earliest versions,” originating as early as AD 850. Following this, Rudy discussed several other different versions of the Cinderella story, including “La Gatta Cenerentola” (1634) from Naples, Italy; “Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre” (1697) from Paris, France; “Finette Cendron” (1697) from Paris, France; and “Aschenputtel” (1857) from Berlin, Germany. While each of these versions contains unique elements, each has pieces that we see in modern Cinderella adaptations, demonstrating the timeless allure of Cinderella’s rags-to-riches story.
Rudy also addressed some of the darker aspects of the stories and used the mistreatment of Cinderella’s character to illustrate the concept of “fairy-tale justice”—the satisfactory reversal of a character receiving justice for harm done to them. According to Rudy, two strategies address this, both of which we see in these renditions of Cinderella’s story: retributive (punishing the perpetrator) and restorative (forgiving the perpetrator). No matter how justice is “served,” stories like Cinderella’s highlight how fairy tales not only function to entertain but also to teach valuable lessons about overcoming difficulties and having resilience.
The Power of Short Stories
by Tessa Swensen
In his lecture “Five Short Stories Everyone Should Read,” given on August 22, 2024, Associate Professor Stephen Tuttle (Literature and Creative Writing) made a case for fictional short stories. He began by stating, “I will sometimes hear people dismiss fiction as being not as important because it's not dealing with real life. I would argue that fiction is focused on real life. . . [because] we know that somebody somewhere has carefully selected these details for us.” Tuttle argued that just as an artisan has to create a chair or a desk because they don’t form naturally, a writer has to create a work of fiction.
Tuttle invited listeners to read the following short stories, confident that each will help readers understand how to analyze both the plot of and the characters in fiction.
- “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen, 1961
- “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, 1973
- “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville, 1853
- “Wickedness” by Ron Hansen, 1989
- “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1968
Though the settings and characters of these short stories have more differences than similarities, Tuttle argued that they have similar central themes: a plea for developing empathy, compassion, and understanding. Tuttle said, “If we read these stories, we will be better human beings. We will be more empathetic." He explained how we can practice empathy by immersing ourselves in the subjective experiences of the characters and learning through the counsel and wisdom they offer about the complexities of the human experience.