Theology of suffering and C.S. Lewis' 'A Grief Observed' - Dr Tasia Scrutton

Interpretation and the shaping of experience: Theology of suffering and C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed
A Grief Observed is an edited version of a journal the Christian writer C.S. Lewis kept following the death of his wife. In addition to experiences familiar to many, arguably the most prominent themes of the journal are striking, distinctive, and by no means commonly shared. These themes relate to fears, early in the journal, regarding the construction of mental images of his wife, accompanied by a sense of God’s absence, and, later in the journal, to the resolution of these fears and sense of God’s returning presence. In this talk Tasia will draw attention to these distinctive features of Lewis’ grief, and consider them through the lens of aspects of Lewis’ theology. In so doing she will draw attention to the way in which interpretation - here, theological interpretation - can shape experience, including experiences of grief.
Speaker:
Dr Tasia Scrutton is Associate Professor in Philosophy and Religion at the University of Leeds. Her research relates to the philosophy of religion (currently, privative views of evil), and religion and mental health. Her recent publications include Christianity and Depression: Interpretation, Meaning, and the Shaping of Experience. London: SCM Press (2020), and 'And so she returned to the eternal source’: Continuing Bonds and the Figure of Beatrice in C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed, The Heythrop Journal (2020).
Project:
A talk for 'Grief: A Study of Human Emotional Experience' - a 4-year AHRC-funded project at the Department of Philosophy, University of York.
​The overarching aim of 'Grief: A Study of Human Emotional Experience' is to develop a detailed, wide-ranging, and integrated account of what it is to experience grief, focusing on aspects of grief that are of considerable theoretical and practical importance but remain poorly understood.​

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Thank you for this presentation. I have recently bought CS Lewis’s book A Grief Observed to assist me through my chaplaincy course.