Tolkien Gleanings #70.
* A new Masters dissertation for Tennessee Technological University, “J.R.R. Tolkien Depicts Camaraderie and Combat Trauma in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings“ (2023). The author… “highlights the specific trauma of Tolkien’s characters and how they connect to the trauma combat veterans face in modern warfare [with] insight into camaraderie [and its role in war and on returning home]”. Abstract and Introduction only, free online.
* A four-day event at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, just started and running through this week. “The road goes ever on and on”: Commemorating J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) has keynote speeches, round tables, lectures, a book launch, singing and more. Including Thomas Honegger on “Beautiful and sublime – and never mind the pointed ears. Visualising the Elves throughout the centuries”. Other talks include: “About Ships, Pirates, and Distant Shores: Tolkien’s maritime world”; “Tolkien’s Anarcho-Monarchism”; “Tolkien’s Use of Magic” and more.
Note there is a streaming version, albeit on Zoom, and I guess some of the talks may be in English. Hopefully there will also be YouTube recordings in due course.
* The above conference will also launch the book J.R.R. Tolkien: Construtor de Mundos (2023). Apparently… “a first approach to certain figures and spaces” in the Legendarium, previous un-discussed in Portuguese.
* A Fantasy Study Day at the British Library in London. Saturday 17th June 2023. Booking now. This is ahead of their autumn/winter show, Fantasy: Realms of Imagination which opens on 27th October 2023 and which looks to have a strong political slant.
* A new free public-domain book in Spanish from the University of Salamanca, Authors In Search Of The Author: Literary Studies on Transcendent Identities (2023). Has the long essay “Desde y hacia el Logos: sacramentalismo y via pulchritudinis en Coleridge, Newman y Tolkien” (‘From and to the Logos: sacramentalism and via pulchritudinis in Coleridge, [Cardinal] Newman and Tolkien’). Can be freely translated and/or summarised in English, due to the permissive licence.
* And finally, a regrettable copyright response. Though such things seem somewhat moot, in a world newly inhabited by magic art-elves…
