Last Tuesday, an off-campus home transformed into Oxford. Students shared hors-d’oeuvres and discussed theology and literature well into the night. Even a British accent filled the room. 

The new Hillsdale C.S. Lewis Society hosted the soiree as part of its first event on Sept. 12. The evening began with a lecture, “C.S. Lewis on Power,” from Michael Ward, associate faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford University. Students and professors, including Ward, then attended the soiree afterward at Egypt, an off-campus home near the Oak Grove Cemetery, for light fare and desserts.

“We want to do academic discussion combined with food, community, fellowship, and professors and students intermingling,” said senior Luke Hollister, the society’s president. 

The society plans to feature two to three evening lectures per semester covering C.S. Lewis, the Inklings, and related thinkers and topics, followed by a gathering where students and professors can continue the discussion and enjoy food and refreshments.

C.S. Lewis is best known for “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “The Space Trilogy,” and various published lectures. A member of the Inklings, he held academic positions at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, making him a favorite scholar among Hillsdale students who study abroad with Ward. 

The society’s mission statement says it was founded “to promote the Lewisian spirit of joyful curiosity among the ladies and gentlemen of Hillsdale by facilitating serious academic engagement, while aspiring to the hospitable atmosphere of an Oxonian dinner party.” 

Hollister, senior Michael Hoggat, and juniors Justus Hume and Mark den Hollander started the society this semester. The students said they were inspired by the culture of hospitality and dinner parties they found while studying in Oxford. They modeled the society after the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society. 

“All four of us in leadership had an experience in Oxford of the Oxford dinner party, and we also saw an academic engagement in Oxford that we didn’t really see in Hillsdale in the same way,” Hollister said.

The idea of a C.S. Lewis Society at Hillsdale began when Ph.D. student and alumnus Joshua Waechter ’20 attended an Oxford C.S. Lewis Society meeting this past May. Waechter was a member of the society while pursuing his masters degree at Oxford,  and he said the group was his first time encountering a place like Hillsdale at the university.

Waechter said he wanted to introduce the experience of the Oxford society to Hillsdale and proposed it to Ward, who passed the suggestion along to Hoggatt and Hollister.

“Hillsdale is also a bit of an Anglophile campus,” Waechter said. “I saw it as a way of bringing that culture to Hillsdale.”

Ward, the senior advisor of the Oxford C.S. Lewis society, compared it to Hillsdale’s new society. 

“The societies are quite similar — the lecture and Q&A followed by socialization,” Ward said. “That’s the Oxford tradition.”

Ward said the society will solidify the dialogue already happening at Hillsdale about Lewis and the Inklings, serving as a “gravitational pull” to continue that conversation in an informal setting. 

“Lewis wrote fiction and about literary criticism and religion — all three of those things will serve as topics,” Hollister said. “We also want to talk about other people within the Inklings because Lewis and company is the goal we’re going for.”

The society also recruited the help of junior and former pastry chef Mark den Hollander, the group’s minister of hospitality. Before transferring to Hillsdale last year, den Hollander studied pastry and confectionery at Le Cordon Bleu in London.

“We wanted to help bring the sense of culture and hospitality they have in the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society,” Hoggatt said. “Mark is an excellent pastry chef and also really skilled with hospitality.”

Hoggatt said the club will also give students the opportunity to present their own ideas about Lewis and the Inklings. 

“We want to create an environment for undergraduate and graduate students to practice doing research and presenting their own work publically,” Hoggatt said. “They can present a 10 to 15 minute paper as an opener for the main speaker.” 

The society plans to host at least one more event this semester. 

“We want to show that passive acceptance of information is not as impactful as when you receive information from a lecture and discuss it with your friends, professors, and the speaker.” Hollister said. “There’s this academic community you probably won’t get past college.”