Andrew wraps up “Jack’s Bookshelf” this month by interviewing Dr. Crystal Downing, Codirector of the Wade Center, about Dorothy L. Sayers.
S6E36: “Jack’s Bookshelf – Dorothy L. Sayers” (Download)
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Show Notes
Introduction
Drop-In
Quote-of-the-week
[Dorothy L. Sayers] chose to build bridges between Christ and culture, having come to love them both
Dr. Crystal Downing, Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L Sayers
Biographical Information
Crystal Downing is the Co-Director of the Marion E. Wade Center and co-holder of the Marion E. Wade Chair in Christian Thought at Wheaton College: a position she shares with her husband, C. S. Lewis scholar David C. Downing.
She is formerly Distinguished Professor of English and Film Studies at Messiah College in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Downing has written several books, including “Salvation from Cinema: The Medium is the Message”, “How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith”, “Changing Signs of Truth: A Christian Introduction to the Semiotics of Communication”, as well as two books on Dorothy Sayers, one of which we’ll explore today, Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L Sayers.
Guest Biographical Information
Chit-Chat
Andrew speaks about visiting the Marion E. Wade Center and Dr. Downing shared some of the history of the Center and its founder Clyde S. Kilby.
Our Patreon supporters have access to a virtual tour of the The Wade Center.
Toast
- Andrew was drinking Taste of San Antonio coffee, some of which he gave to Priscilla Tolkien
- Crystal was drinking hazelnut latté
Discussion
01. “Sayers 101”
Q. Would you mind giving our listeners an introduction to Dorothy L. Sayers?
- Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L Sayers by Dr. Crystal Downing
- Dorothy L. Sayers Wikipedia article
- Sayers was a member of the London Detection Club before Agatha Christie
- The Zeal of thy House by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Elliot
02. “Encountering Dorothy”
Q. How did you first encounter Dorothy L. Sayers?
- Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Associate Director of the Marion E. Wade Center, Marjorie Lamp Mead
03. “Dorothy and Jack”
Q. What was the connection between C.S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers?
When Dorothy L. Sayers died in 1957, C.S. Lewis wept
Dr. Crystal Downing, Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L Sayers
04. “Inkling exclusion and influence”
Q. Was Sayers excluded from the Inklings? What effect did she have upon them in general and Lewis in particular?
[Sayers] was the first person of importance whoever wrote me a fan letter.
C.S. Lewis, Letter to the editor of Encounter (1963)
- Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
- The Man Born to Be King: Wade Annotated Edition by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Splendour in the Dark: C. S. Lewis’s Dymer in His Life and Work by C.S. Lewis
- The Pilgrim’s Regress, Wade Annotated Edition by C.S. Lewis
- C. S. Lewis: A Life by Michael White
- The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante by Charles Williams
- The Company They Keep by Dr. Diana Glyer
- Charles Williams and C. S. Lewis: Friends in Co-inherence by Paul S. Fiddes
Dear Miss Sayers,
C.S. Lewis, Letter to Dorothy L. Sayers (7th August 1946)
Hey! Whoa! You write as if I’d been urging you to do a book. Surely I was very careful not to? The only difference is that I see nothing but doubts where all looks self-evident to you. That may well be because you’re a real writer and I’m only a half-timer. Also, because I thought of a work which would be very definitely applied art. But don’t bother your head about my views (or doubts) any more.
- Companion to Narnia, Revised Edition: A Complete Guide to the Magical World of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia by Paul F. Ford
- Priestesses in the Church? by C.S. Lewis
- The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L Sayers (referenced in Miracles by C.S. Lewis)
Don’t like either the ultra feminine or the ultra masculine myself. I prefer people.
C.S. Lewis, Letter to Dorothy L. Sayers (5/8/55)
- Are women human? by Dorothy L. Sayers
05. “The Apostle to the Disaffected”
Q. In what was was Sayers an apostle to the disaffected and engaged cultured?
- Apostle to the Skeptics by Chad Walsh
06. “Beginning Sayers”
Q. Where would you recommend people begin in reading Sayers?
- The “Nones”
- Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity: Processions and Persons by Rev. Katherine Sonderegger
- Andrew’s suggested reading:
- The Man Born to Be King: Wade Annotated Edition by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L Sayers by Dr. Crystal Downing
- On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature by C.S. Lewis
(“XII A Panegyric for Dorothy L Sayers”) - Essays Presented to Charles Williams by C.S. Lewis
- The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers edited by Barbara Reynolds
- The Divine Comedy translated by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Dr. Downing’s suggested reading:
- Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Gaudy Night: A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery with Harriet Vane by Dorothy L. Sayers
- The Man Born to Be King: Wade Annotated Edition by Dorothy L. Sayers
- The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Creed or chaos? by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul by Barabara Reynolds
Wrap-Up
More Information
If you email wade@wheaton.edu and reference this podcast, you can get a signed copy of Subversive or The Man Born to Be King: Wade Annotated Edition with a 10% discount.
