Some Important NSA News

So here is some news that I am kind of whizzed up about, to use the technical phrase for it. After Peter Leithart left for Theopolis in Alabama, New St. Andrews needed to revisit our catalog offerings in our MA program, for the simple reason that Peter had taught a lot of our courses. Now as some of you know, NSA offers an MA in theology and letters, and we have now completed our adjustments to that program. I have accepted the responsibility of directing the MA program next year, and if you click here, and scroll down, you will come to a treasure trove of updated information about our vision for literary theology and theological wordsmithing.

We have kept the heart of our program, but we have also made some significant adjustments. The main thing I would like to draw to your attention is the fact that we have placed a line of directed readings through the middle of the MA program, with the result that at the end of two years of study, our grad students will have had the option of reading virtually everything C.S. Lewis ever wrote. This is not because we are offering an MA “in Lewis,” but rather because we want our students to see Lewis as the “model of the kind of synthesis of story-telling, persuasive writing, literary analysis, and theology sought after” in our program. In short, within the framework of historic Reformed theology, we want to set Lewis up as a mentor in genre synthesis.

Our program is in theology and letters. We want our grad students who are more naturally on the theology side to be equipped to write winsomely, and we want the grad students who are on the wordsmithy side to receive a solid grounding in historic Reformed theology. And speaking of historic Reformed theology, this grad program is also closely integrated with the Wenden House project, which is employing select grad students to translate theologians from the Reformation era out of Latin into English — into English for the first time. The whole thing is way past exciting.

There will be more to say about this in the weeks to come, so please stay tuned. In the meantime, if you are at all interested in what we are doing in this department, more information can be found here.