Sarah is an expert in Shakespeare and C.S. Lewis. She regularly speaks internationally and also publishes on both of these writers, sometimes separately and sometimes together. She is currently working on a book on Lewis and Shakespeare, a chapter on Lewis’s work on Shakespeare for the new Routledge Companion to C.S. Lewis as well as an ever-growing handful of side projects including work on the Inklings and Shakespeare; female grief and voice in Shakespearean drama; and a number of publications emerging from some new discoveries she has made at the archives.
Prior to working at Buckingham she taught at Oxford Brookes University, Crandall University, and as guest lecturer she has given specialist lectures for Milton and Shakespeare courses at Montreat College, NC; for a Lewis and Communication course at University of Northwestern, St Paul, MN; for a Shakespeare course at George Fox Unviersity, OR ; for a Shakespeare and English Language course at Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador; for an Oxford literatures course for visiting students from Okinawa Christian University, Japan; and for a Shakespeare course at Mary-Hardin Baylor University, TX.
Publications
Articles
- ‘“De Arca Noe”: An Early Lewis-Barfield Collaboration’ (with a translation and notes by A.T. Reyes, Journal of Inklings Studies 13.2 (2023), 252–281. DOI: 10.3366/ink.2023.0199. Online access here.
- ‘Lewis, Lear, and The Four Loves’, An Unexpected Journal Shakespeare Special Issue 5.4 (2022), open access here.
- ‘Disrupted dialogues: exploring misgendered diagnoses and experiences of melancholia and depression through the lens of Pericles and contemporary psychiatric practice’, Shakespeare 17.3 (2021). DOI: 10.1080/17450918.2021.1925332. Online access here.
- ‘CS Lewis’ Science Fiction and Shakespeare: A Romance Made in the Heavens’, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction 135, 49.1 (2020), 57-66. Online access here.
Journal Special Issues
- Sarah R. A. Waters and Joe Ricke (eds.), Shakespeare Special Issue, An Unexpected Journal, 5.4 (2022), whole issue open access here.
Theatre Reviews
- ‘Review of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Directed by Mike Fentiman), Gillian Lynne Theatre, London, October 30, 2022’, Sehnsucht 16 (2023). DOI: 10.55221/1940-5537.1286 Online version available here.
- ‘Review of Shakespeare and Wilkins’ Pericles (Directed by Paul Burbridge), York International Shakespeare Festival, Online Performance, 5–6 June; Catch-up Access 6 June–6 July, Reviewed 19 June 2021’, Shakespeare (2021). DOI: 10.1080/17450918.2021.1957996. Online access here.
Selected Recent Keynotes, Talks & Conference Presentations
- Making things (c)Lear: Lewis’s play-full pictures in his (cultural) apologetics’ Shakespeare, C. S. Lewis, & Cultural Apologetics Talk Series, Presented by the Language and Literature Department, the C. S. Lewis Initiative & the Apologetics Initiative, George Fox University, OR (April, 2023).
- ‘Shakespeare in (and on) the Margins: The Lesser Told Story of C.S. Lewis’ Readerly and Writerly Engagement(s) with Shakespeare’, Second Annual Batson Shakespeare Society Lecture, Wade Center, Wheaton College, IL (April 2023).
- ‘Wounded by Grace: Affective and Response Sacrifices in The Lord of the Rings’, Inklings Fellowship Conference: The Legacy of J. R. R. Tolkien Fifty Years after His Death, Montreat College, NC. (April 2023). Watch here.
- ‘“So many lamp-posts for a dog”: C. S. Lewis ever the (in)hospitable literary critic’, Central Indiana C.S. Lewis Society, Indianapolis, IN. (April 2023)
- ‘Playful (mock)medievalism in Narnia: Allegory Afterlives and Chivalric (Re)imaginings’, C. S. Lewis and the Middle Ages I: Narnian Medievalism: A Reappraisal: International Congress for Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. (May 2023)
- Keynote: ‘CS Lewis and Shakespeare’. From Shakespeare to the Inklings: The Bible’s Impact on Creative Imagination, Inkling-Plus Premiere Global Conference, Montreat, NC (2022).
- ‘The Inklings and Shakespeare’, The Origin of Stories: The Inklings and the Christian Scriptures, The Inklings Fellowship Conference, Oxford (2022).
- ‘Shakespeare and the Inklings’, Inkling Folk Fellowship, Oxford. [Held via Zoom] (2022).
- ‘Cultivating Intellectual Hospitality in Academia: Why Lewis’ Literary Criticism is Different’, Surprised by Love: Cultivating Intellectual Hospitality in an Age of Uncertainty: The 2022 CS Lewis Institute, Academic Roundtable, CS Lewis Foundation Oxbridge, Oxford (2022).
- Séminaire de littérature anglophone ‘Seeds of Literature’: “All the world’s a stage”: An ecocritical exploration of Shakespeare’s imagined worlds’, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens (2022).
- ‘(Eu)catastrophic Aquinian Grace in the vision and fictions of J.R.R. Tolkien and Flannery O’Connor’, Tolkien Amongst the Theologians, Houston Baptist University, TX. (2022).
- ‘Facial (mis)recognition: Out of the Silent Planet and the boundaries of face-to-face’, Now We Have Faces: The First Annual C.S. Lewis Symposium, Ulster University, Coleraine (2022). Watch here.
- ‘Of Shakespeare and Other Worlds: C. S. Lewis’ Exploration of Shakespearean Worlds in Criticism and Fiction’. 5th International Interdisciplinary C. S. Lewis Conference: Of This and Other Worlds, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iași (Romania). (2021)
- ‘“Faces, faces, faces! What are you all gaping at?”: Face-to-Face Interaction in a Masked World’. TexMoot 2021: Embodiment – Do You Need Some Body to Love, Fourth Annual Texas Literature & Language Symposium, Signum University, TX. (2021).
- Keynote: ‘Responsive sacrifices and affective responses from Hobbits and other Middle Earth residents’. Biannual Tolkien Conference, Urbana Theological Seminary, Urbana, IL. (2021) Watch here.
Teaching Expertise
- Inklings and their Influences
- Shakespearean Drama
- Reading Genders
- Eras of English
- Rewriting Empire
Outreach
- Interviewed for Pints with Jack series Jack’s Bookshelf, on Lewis and Shakespeare (2023), listen here.
- Guest speaker on Alister McGrath C.S. Lewis Podcast, Premier Christian Radio (2023), listen here.
- Invited contributor to commemorative podcast series on Walter Hooper (2021), listen here.
- Interviewer of Patti Callahan, discussing her new book Once upon a Wardrobe (2021), listen here.
- Invited expert for C. S. Lewis essay chat podcast to discuss ‘Hamlet: The Prince and the Poem’ (2020), listen here.
Qualifications
- BA (Hons.) English Literature with French, University of Buckingham
- MA English Literature by Research, University of Buckingham
- PhD English Literature and Medical Humanities, Oxford Brookes University
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (from 2022)