Founder – Dr. Salwa Khoddam
Salwa Khoddam, PhD, is professor emerita of English at Oklahoma City University. She directed the First conference on C. S. Lewis in Oklahoma in 1998 at Oklahoma City University and then again in 2003 and 2010. Dr. Khoddam also founded the C. S. Lewis and the Inklings Society (CSLIS) in 2004 and was its first president. She has published several articles and book reviews on C. S. Lewis and co-edited three anthologies on the Inklings entitled Truths Breathed Through Silver: The Inklings’ Moral and Mythopoeic Legacy (2008), C.S. Lewis and the Inklings: Discovering Hidden Truth (2012), and C.S. Lewis and the Inklings: Reflections on Faith, Imagination, and Modern Technology (2015). She has also authored a book on Lewis titled Mythopoeic Narnia: Memory, Metaphor, and Metamorphoses in The Chronicles of Narnia (2013). In 2016 she co-translated Torquato Tasso’s Il Mondo Creato into English (The Created World). Recently Dr. Khoddam has also co-translated an Italian novel about Lewis and Tolkien (and other British authors) into English (forthcoming in 2019). The title of the novel is Morning Star (original title Stella del Mattino).
President – Dr. Mark Hall
Mark Hall, PhD, is Professor of English and Dean of the College of Arts and Cultural Studies at Oral Roberts University. He has been involved with CSLIS from the beginning, having hosted the 1999, 2005, and 2011 CSLIS conferences and served as president of the organization. Dr. Hall has written numerous articles and essays on C.S. Lewis and the Inklings, many of which have been presented at CSLIS conferences, including “The Wizard in the Well: The Transmogrification of the Mythical Merlin in C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength” and “The Intertextuality of C. S. Lewis and H. G. Wells: A Journey into the Imagination.” He also co-edited C.S. Lewis and the Inklings: Discovering Hidden Truth (2012) and C.S. Lewis and the Inklings: Reflections on Faith, Imagination, and Modern Technology (2015).
Vice President – James Stockton
Jim Stockton is an Emeritus Lecturer in Philosophy at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho. His research interests include medieval philosophy, philosophy and film, and Inklings Studies. His most recent works in Inklings Studies include “Faith Awakened in the Woods of Narnia,” Inklings Forever, vol. 10 (2017); “C. S. Lewis on Aerial Daemons, External Attendants, and the Concept of Individual Genius” and “The Trees of Narnia” presented at the 53rd Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies in 2018. Past Inklings Studies publications include “The Libraries of Narnia,” C. S. Lewis and the Inklings: Discovering Hidden Truth (2012); “Chaplain Stella Aldwinckle: A Biographical Sketch of the Spiritual Foundation of the Oxford University Socratic Club” Inklings Forever, vol. 8 (2012); and “C. S. Lewis and the Oxford Philosophers: A Philosophical Review of the Oxford Socratic Club” Persona and Paradox: Issues of Identity for C. S. Lewis, His Friends and Associates (2012).
Secretary – Dr. Lindsey Panxhi
Lindsey Panxhi, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University. She is a medievalist who specializes in literature of the High Middle Ages, teaching courses such as Early British Literature and “British Authors on Location,” which took place in London as part of a Study abroad Program. She has published an article in Viator titled “Rewriting the Werewolf and Rehabilitating the Irish in the Topographia Hibernica of Gerald of Wales” (2015). Panxhi is also a lifelong reader of the works of Lewis, Tolkien, and other Inklings, and has engaged with Inklings scholarship by presenting at various Inklings-related conferences. She has taught a course on the life and works of C.S. Lewis and is currently teaching a topics course titled “Medieval Roots of The Lord of the Rings.” Panxhi has an article titled “An ‘Inner Ring’ or an Open Fellowship?: An Evaluation of the Company of St. Anne’s in That Hideous Strength” forthcoming in a Festschrift, C.S. Lewis and the Christian Mind: Essays in Honor of Dr. Michael E. Travers, published by Wipf and Stock.
Treasurer & Webmaster – Lee Webb
Lee Webb is Associate Professor on the Faculty of the Dulaney-Browne Library and Librarian for the Saint Paul School of Theology at Oklahoma City University. He teaches a Liberal Arts Seminar for freshmen on the Chronicles of Narnia. He has been a member of the Society since 2010 and presented papers at the annual conferences in 2014, 2016 and 2017, and is president of the Oklahoma City chapter of the Society.
Board Member – Kathryne Hall
Kathryne Hall is currently an adjunct professor at Oral Roberts University—teaching General Studies classes and co-teaching Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic. She has a B.A. in Writing with Minors in Modern Hebrew, Music, Art, English Literature, and Humanities, as well as an M.A. in Biblical Literature with an Advanced Languages Concentration. She served as President of the C. S. Lewis and Inklings Club for three years while a student at ORU, often leading discussions and events that focused around the Inklings and their works. She has also guest lectured about the Inklings to classes and club events. Kathryne has presented at four C. S. Lewis and Inklings Society Conferences (2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017) and two C. S. Lewis and Friends Colloquiums at Taylor University (2014 and 2016). Out of these six Inklings Conferences that she has attended, her writing on the Inklings was awarded at four of them, and her Senior Paper about Tolkien received two honors at ORU. She is also published in two conference proceedings.
Board Member – Dr. Jan Prewitt
Jan Prewitt, PhD, is a retired professor of English, having taught at Kendall College of Art and Design, the University of Kansas, Emporia State University, Greenville Technical College, and Bob Jones University. She attended and presented a paper at the second C. S. Lewis and the Inklings Society (CSLIS) conference in 1999, was treasurer of the CSLIS from 2009-2012, and currently manages the society’s Facebook page. Her dissertation “Intertextual Transposition: Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy” discusses how Lewis’s modern science-fiction trilogy reinterprets Spenser’s epic poem. She has presented papers about Lewis or Tolkien at over 10 different conferences nationwide, and has published several articles including “The Motif of Discovery in The Chronicles of Narnia” in C.S. Lewis and the Inklings: Discovering Hidden Truth (2012).
Board Member – Dr. Martin Batts
Martin Batts, PhD, is a retired professor, having taught English, Bible, and philosophy classes at LeTourneau University, Texas. Dr. Batts has taught high school and college students, served as co-director of Ecola Hall Short Term Bible School served two terms as president of CSLIS. Having received degrees in education, English, philosophy, theology, and divinity, Dr. Batts is a lifelong learner and an avid reader of C. S. Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, and Shakespeare.