Ralph C. Wood is Emeritus Professor of Theology and Literature, Baylor University, Waco, Texas. Dr. Wood spent fifty years in the collegiate classroom at Wake Forest, Samford, and Baylor before retiring in 2021. His books include The Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists (Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor, John Updike, and Peter De Vries); Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South; The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth; Contending for the Faith: The Church’s Engagement with Culture; Preaching and Professing: Sermons by a Teacher Seeking to Proclaim the Gospel; as well as Chesterton: The Nightmare Goodness of God. In 2018, he received the Russell Kirk Paideia Prize for lifetime achievement in cultivating wisdom and virtue, awarded by CIRCE (Center for Independent Research on Classical Education). In 2020 he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award for Teaching by the Conference on Christianity and Literature.
Links to posts and programs featuring Ralph C. Wood:
Virtue and myth in Middle-earth — Ralph C. Wood and Bradley Birzer discuss Christian wisdom, virtues, and the strength of myth in J. R. R. Tolkien’s created world of Middle-earth. (33 minutes)
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 73 — FEATURED GUESTS: Richard John Neuhaus, Nigel Cameron, Carlos F. Gomez, Michael Uhlmann, Patrick Carey, John W. O’Malley, Patricia Owen, Susan Srigley, and Ralph C. Wood
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 66 — FEATURED GUESTS: Leon Kass, Nigel Cameron, Susan Wise Bauer, Esther Lightcap Meek, John Shelton Lawrence, and Ralph Wood
Maker of Middle-earth — Tom Shippey, Joseph Pearce, and Ralph Wood examine J. R. R. Tolkien and his mythological Lord of the Rings trilogy to explore what makes Tolkien's work resonant and a vessel for truth. (86 minutes)
Freedom and equality according to Flannery O’Connor — Three guests discuss Flannery O’Connor’s ideas: Henry T. Edmondson, III, on O’Connor’s understanding of political life; Ralph C. Wood, on O’Connor as a “hillbilly Thomist”; and Susan Srigley, on O’Connor’s sacramental and incarnational fiction. (18 minutes)
Christopher Hitchens vs. G. K. Chesterton — Ralph Wood compares Christopher Hitchens's view of the cosmos with that of G. K. Chesterton, arguing that Chesterton succeeded where Hitchens failed. (44 minutes)
Tolkien Among the Moderns. University of Notre Dame Press (September 2015)
Chesterton: The Nightmare Goodness of God. Baylor University Press (2011)
Preaching and Professing: Sermons by a Teacher Seeking to Proclaim the Gospel. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (February 2009)
Literature and Theology (Horizons in Theology). Abingdon Press (November 2008)
Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (March 2004)
The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth. Westminster John Knox Press (October 2003)
Contending for the Faith: The Church’s Engagement with Culture (Interpreting Christian Texts and Traditions Series, vol. 1). Baylor University Press (2003)
The Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists. University of Notre Dame Press; Reprint edition (September 1991)
