This year’s Grove City College Christian Writers Conference comes early, providing students and faith-focused scribes a chance to listen to and learn from English author Paul Kingsnorth.
Kingsnorth, a journalist, novelist, poet, and essayist, will discuss his new book “Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity" at 7 p.m. Oct. 7 in Harbison Chapel on the campus of Grove City College. A signing reception will follow in Rathburn Hall after the lecture and Kingsnorth will also take part in a public conversation that afternoon on campus as part of the conference.
Professor of English Dr. Jeffrey Bilbro said the conference, which usually takes place in the spring, was moved up in the academic year to take advantage of Kingsnorth’s availability during his North American book tour.
“Kingsnorth is the most incisive and provocative Christian writer working today, I think, and his fiction and essays address fundamental questions about how we can live as faithful disciples of Christ in this political, cultural, and technological moment,” said Bilbro, who interviewed the writer in 2021 for his Front Porch Republic website.
Bilbro isn’t alone in praising Kingsnorth, who The Washington Examiner described as “the black-pilled laureate of modern Britain.” Other reviewers say his writing is “radically original,” “raw and brave on the page,” and “serious, furious, and always consistent.” Justin Smith-Ruiu, author of “The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is,” said Kingsnorth is “a Christian thinker who does not sugarcoat his convictions.”
In “Against the Machine,” Kingsnorth presents a view of the technological-cultural matrix of modern society, known as progress, that he writes on his website is “destroying the life support systems of the Earth itself, razing and homogenizing the mosaic of human cultures, stripping all meaning, truth and traditional support structures from our lives, and increasingly using humans as fodder in a rising digital empire which may one day supplant us.”
Kingsnorth writes that his “most strongly held belief is this: that our modern crisis is not economic, political, scientific or technological, and that no ‘answers’ to it will be found in those spheres. I believe that we are living through a deep spiritual crisis; perhaps even a spiritual war. My interest these days is what this means.”
Kingsnorth is the author of ten books of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, including the novel “The Wake,” which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the first book in his Buckmaster Trilogy.
The Christian Writers Conference, sponsored by the College’s Department of English, is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is requested. Pre-register here: https://www.gcc.edu/Home/Campus-Calendar/Event/paul-kingsnorth-lecture.