Workshop Speaker
The Practicalities of Carrying On a Tradition: Living in C.S. Lewis’ House for Eight Years
The Kilns—the Oxford home where C.S. Lewis lived from 1930 until his death in 1963—is today a residential study center, museum, and icon for admirers of Lewis the world over. This talk reflects on my time as Warden (caretaker) of the Kilns. The classical tradition offers a profound inheritance, but how do we actually live with it? As stewards, we must preserve—of course—but we must also use and improve on the resources we have been given.
Tyson Rallens is the director of Classical Leadership Programs at the Templeton Honors College, Eastern University, and chairman of the board of directors for the CiRCE Institute. He first encountered classical education as a homeschooler in Boise, ID and subsequently attended both New Saint Andrews College and the University of Idaho simultaneously. He worked for fifteen years in the high-tech industry while also moonlighting as a rhetoric teacher and mock trial coach at The Ambrose School. He is currently working on his third degree from the University of Oxford—a doctorate in business strategy. Strategy, obviously, integrates the possibilities arising from technology and organization with the ideals of the good life and the good society. Tyson has led tours for thousands of visitors to the Kilns—C.S. Lewis’s historic house in Oxford, where he lived for eight years—and has taught the fundamentals of crew rowing to hundreds of Merton College freshers.