New Director(s) of the Wade

So, there's big news from the Wade Center, the most important of which is that after an interim of several years,* during which their highly skilled and dedicated staff has carried on as usual, the Wade has a new director.

Indeed, new directors (plural), since Dr. David C. Downing and Dr. Crystal L. Downing become co-directors --the first time in the Wade's history that a husband-wife team will be representing the Collection.  I hadn't known Dr. Crystal's work; it seems she's a well-regarded Sayers scholar. That's outside my field of expertise, but it'll be interesting to see if that brings more attention to Sayers at Wheaton. And Dr. David is of course well-known in Lewis scholarship (an island I visit but do not dwell therein) for books like PLANETS IN PERIL and THE MOST RELUCTANT CONVERT.

https://www.wheaton.edu/academics/academic-centers/wadecenter/news-and-events/



Other recent big news is that the President of Wheaton College has a new book out on Tolkien:
MESSIAH COMES TO MIDDLE-EARTH: IMAGES OF CHRIST'S THREEFOLD OFFICE IN THE LORD OF THE RINGS by Philip Ryken.

https://www.wheaton.edu/academics/academic-centers/wadecenter/publications/messiah-comes-to-middle-earth/

Aside from Kilby himself, the founding father of the Wade, its directors have tended to focus of C. S. Lewis more than Tolkien (perhaps feeling, with some justification, that JRRT was well represented elsewhere), so this book's focus on Tolkien is welcome to those of us who are more Tolkienists and general Inklings scholars than whatever wd be the CSL fans/scholars equivalent (Lewisists?)

--John R.


*following the departure and then untimely death of director Chris Mitchell