About

And a very good day to you,

My name is Chris, but I write under C.W. Howell—you'd be surprised how many Chris Howells there are in the world. I have a PhD, but I only go by Dr. Howell when I'm around physicians.

I have taught at Duke University and Elon University, and I am currently a researcher and writer based in Durham. I am also the Director of Academic Programs for the C.S. Lewis Foundation.

This website hosts my writing—articles, essays, blog posts, as well as links to stuff published elsewhere. Since it is my personal website and is not financially affiliated with the Foundation, Duke, or any other institution, the views here are my own and are not necessarily representative of anyone else.

Here you'll find techno-pessimist ululations about religion, science, and technology; layman's meditations on Eastern Orthodoxy and Greece; as well as essays and reviews on things like science fiction, baseball, contemporary and classic literature, C.S. Lewis, or whatever other fancy strikes. I am an unabashed generalist. In academia, you are expected to specialize, but I can't heroically refuse.

For a more detailed explanation of the site, see the below article, "To Serve Man," in which I explore our disordered relationship to technology and what might be a better way to conceive of it.

To Serve Man - The Relationship of Humanity to Technology

An explanation for this site. We can neither embrace technology uncritically, nor renounce it totally.

C.W. HowellC.W. Howell

I created this site earlier in the year, but it got boosted due to a tweet of mine that went viral, regarding the use of ChatGPT in the college classroom. I have published a few pieces about this externally, which you can find on my publications page. Including one from Scientific American:

To Educate Students about AI, Make Them Use It

A college professor and his students explain what they learned from bringing ChatGPT into the classroom

Scientific AmericanC.W. Howell, Cal Baker, Fayrah Stylianopoulos

I have also written an article on it here on my own site, which you can find below.

ChatGPT and the University’s Existential Crisis

To grapple with ChatGPT in the classroom is also to grapple with the purpose of education: what are its means and what are its ends?

C.W. HowellC.W. Howell

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Material on this site is free and not behind a subscription wall. But, by subscribing you'll receive a newsletter email when I post a new essay, which will usually be every two weeks to a month or so (barring unforeseen circumstances like alien invasion).