Tolkien Gleanings #57.
* News of a new book, Myth, Magic, and Power in Tolkien’s Middle-earth: Developing a Model for Understanding Power and Leadership. Set for release in mid July 2023, with a hefty £65 price tag for what is a 120-page book. But it does appear to be a serious study of “the social power dynamics at work” in human leadership actions. With all examples drawn from The Lord of the Rings.
* An 11th April 2023 call from the organiser of the Tolkien Studies Area of the enormous Popular Culture Association Conference (27th-30th March 2024, Chicago). Not a call for that Easter 2024 conference, but rather for a possible event (presumably for Tolkien scholars) beyond that in the summer…
“I am chairing an Exploratory Committee to gather information for the Board on what we would need to do to run a Virtual Conference during summer 2024. If you are interested in attending such a conference, or working with [us] on the project, please let me know.”
* Advance news of two books set for 2024, from the same author. Just the titles and publishers, at present. Tolkien’s House of Being from Kent State University Press, and The Herdsman of Light: Tolkien and the Mystical Theology of Anglo-Saxon Poetry from Darkly Bright Press.
* On Archive.org, four new scans of the journal Anglia: Zeitschrift fur Englische Philologie. Being the issues for 1926-28, including a 1928 review of Tolkien & Gordon’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight glossary. Also new, five scans of The Journal of English and Germanic Philology for 1923-27, with 1927 having a review of Tolkien & Gordon’s Gawain. Further note 1923’s article “The Tradition of Angelic Singing in English Drama”, which Tolkien would likely have noticed.
* And finally, Tolkien’s legacy has helped to revive the making of tapestry wall-hangings in central France. Today Japan Today reports on the “small town of Aubusson in central France” which has “a tapestry-making tradition that stretches back to the 15th century”. In 2017 they “engaged in a collaborative project to create tapestries based on Tolkien”. This led to “an agreement with Studio Ghibli in 2019 to create five works based on Miyazaki films.” They’ve recently unveilved a giant Spirited Away tapestry. On the back of their Tolkien and Miyazaki work they have had a surge of “applicants to the centre’s artisan training program”.
