Hello and welcome to With Hands Open!  I’m Christy Raj. After years away from an academic environment, in the midst of homeschooling three incredibly curious and active children, I heard about Planet Narnia and picked it up from the local library. I had always loved Narnia – I think we were listening to the audiobooks together at the time. But the book reminded me of my love for looking at literature from a scholarly perspective – and that there are other people out there like me! It also inspired me to pick up the Ransom Trilogy, one thing led to another . . . and this blog was born!   

My primary academic interest is how the image of the eldila at the end of Perelandra portrays Lewis’s view of the essential differences between masculinity and femininity. This blog is named after the posture of the feminine eldil. I’m working on an academic article on the subject, hopefully to be followed by a book or two. I blog mostly about Lewis-related ideas, but I’ll occasionally write about other things I’m thinking about – that’s part of having open hands, after all! I like to think of reading as a conversation, and I  love feedback on my ideas, so please feel free to comment or contact me.

Most Recent Post: High and Low Brows, Part 1

If you’re interested in a bit more about how I got into all this, go here: With Hands Open

If you want to read about my theories on Perelandra, go here: Eldila and Gender

If you want to see all my posts, this is the place: All Blog Posts