Tolkien Gleanings #110.

* A new book collection of work by David Bratman, Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays: On Tolkien, the Inklings, and Fantasy Literature (2023). Available now as a $10 Kindle ebook from Mythopoeic Press. Among others, essays on…

   – The Artistry of Omissions and Revisions in The Lord of the Rings.
   – Smith of Wootton Major and Genre Fantasy.
   – Yes, There Is Religion in Middle-earth.
   – The Making of a Tolkien Fan: A Personal Reminiscence.

* Freely available online, “Tolkien and Comparative Historical Linguistics: Some insights from the earliest works on Elvish languages” (2022). “This paper aims to identify the influence of Tolkien’s academic background in the field of linguistic studies on the creation of his Elvish languages.”

* A 130+ minute podcast on Tolkien’s Letters On Anarcho-Monarchy (May 2023) with Professor Rachel Brown (medieval history at the University of Chicago).

* At the University of Oxford, “How to write The Lord of the Rings”. Being… “a series of free seminars [starting in early October 2023] aimed at those who have read Tolkien’s work but are interested in gaining a bit more insight into his life, career, and writings.” Includes Simon Horobin on “J.R.R. Tolkien: The Making of a Philologist” on 22nd November 2023. Face-to-face with limited auditorium capacity, booking now. Those in Oxford may be also interested in the Oxford Seminars in Cartography Conference, which is to include what sounds like the introductory talk “Artful maps: exploring the visual culture of cartography” on 26th September 2023.

* Slowly being scanned and freely placed online, Green Dragon (1966-1972), the ‘zine of the early Tolkien Society of America. Another new issue was added last week. If you own any of the still-missing issues or similar rare early ‘zines, I’m sure they’d be glad to have a set of scans.

Tolkien Gleanings #109.

* There’s now an official Web page for Tolkien’s Words and Worlds at the University of Oxford. “The aim of the conference is to exhibit and reflect on the range of different approaches, methodologies, and backgrounds with which Tolkien has been studied in the past 50 years”. 2nd-3rd September 2023, with a 31st July registration deadline. The page also reveals details of topics, which among others include…

   – Tolkien’s Biographical Studies: a Long History.
   – Tolkien’s Anglo-Saxon Scholarship and Fiction.
   – Kipling’s Medievalism and Tolkien’s Book of Lost Tales.
   – C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Place of Philology in English Studies.

* The Italian Tolkien Association has an article on Charles Noad and his work. In Italian but easily auto-translated.

* Added to Archive.org to borrow, a year ago, the book Evocation of Virgil in Tolkien’s Art (1986). See also the blog post “Echoes of Vergil” in Tolkien and this week’s follow-on post which offers a note on “C.S. Lewis and William Shakespeare on Vergil”.

* In the German scholarly journal for Christian culture, Stimmen der Zeit 148 (August 2023), an article whose title translates as “Green Sun: J.R.R. Tolkien, Creation and Technology”… “The article first appeared in Etudes and was translated from French by Stefan Kiechle”. Not open-access in either case, by the look of it. But obviously felt to be important enough to translate, which makes the article notable.

* MIT ponders some of the political-philosophical implications of “Talking Trees”. Free online, adapted from the new book Vegetal Entwinements in Philosophy and Art (July 2023).

A somewhat Ent-like figure on a seal, Tepe Gawra, Upper Mesopotamia (c. 3,500 – 2,900 B.C.)

* And finally, A Tolkien Reading Chart v.2023-07b, giving an overview of Tolkien works published to 2023. It’s under CC Attribution so there’s an opportunity here for an artist and designer to give this a makeover, I’d suggest. I can also imagine a “by reading age” wall-chart with a similar approach.

Tolkien Gleanings #108.

* A new Tolkien Society one-day seminar event, Secondary Believers, Secondary Worlds: Tolkien and Religion in the Twenty-First Century. Set for 26th November 2023. The call-for-papers is now live, with a 8th September 2023 deadline. The organisers of the….

“seminar welcome fresh and innovative treatments of the generative interactivity between Tolkien’s fiction, Tolkien’s faith, and the faith (or lack thereof) of the readers [who draw on Middle-earth].”

* New in Fields: journal of Huddersfield student research, “How Architecture Expresses Character Traits in Middle-earth: analysing the great dwarven cities of Moria & Erebor”.

* The Guild of St George offers “A Tolkien reading walk” in early September 2023. It’s said that this is just one event, as… “the Bewdley Museum and Ruskin Land are holding a Tolkien weekend in Bewdley, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham”. But there are no further details at present, other than the walk. Bewdley is a town in the Worcestershire countryside, about six miles the other side of The Black Country, in the West Midlands of England. The event is not listed on the Museum’s “What’s On” page, and I don’t see any associated exhibition (yet). Though I guess there may well be scope for a small regional show which celebrates Tolkien’s connections with Worcestershire, and then tours the county’s libraries and museums.

* I see that a recent series of online lectures has been and gone. “Tolkien, Christianity, and Art” was offered by the Lumen Christi Institute, 18th – 22nd July 2023.

* A call for papers for a pre-Halloween meeting on Medieval Monstrosities (Illinois Medieval Association). Submissions are due by 15th September 2023.

* And finally… new on Archive.org to borrow, the book Fantasy and Science-Fiction Medievalisms (2015). This includes an opening survey of “Low-culture Receptions of Tolkien’s High Fantasy”. And, by sheer co-incidence, the new Tolkien Pop! on Substack. The author discusses Tolkien’s influence on “various pop cultural artefacts”.

Tolkien Gleanings #107.

* Newly released by the Tolkien Society, “Obituary: Charles Noad”.

* News of a forthcoming book, The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien. Due 2nd January 2024, and pre-ordering now at a whopping £130 ($170). Erm, it’s a three-volume set, then? Nope, just a standard academic book with a standard robo-cover. It’s from the usually-leftist publisher Routledge, which is also a bit off-putting — but the contents do sound interesting…

While most criticism has concentrated on Tolkien’s use of historical traditions of northern Europe, this book argues that Tolkien also valued Southern and Mediterranean pasts and registered the Germanic and the Scandinavian pasts as they related to other histories as much as his vision of them included a primeval mythic aura.

The TOCs suggest that the author will have chapters on Ancient Rome, the Goths, and Byzantium, and I see he has previously published Barbarian Memory: The Legacy of Early Medieval History in Early Modern Literature (2013). Which again sounds encouraging. I’d hope for a complex explication of exactly how Tolkien’s Northern sources could have sometimes reflected or been influenced by sources from the Near East, beyond the obvious influences from the Bible and perhaps from Virgil? Definitely one for the Wish List, by the look of it.

* Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Platonism is to host a conference on Participation and Subcreation in September 2023.

* A three-day “online summit”, Interchanging Melodies: Tolkien, Religion & Beyond. Has a good roster of speakers but not much notice is given, since it will run 28th – 30th July 2023. But it seems that tickets can still be had…

The cost? A course like this is typically offered for $99 or more, but contribute whatever you can to help make this possible for everyone. No human is turned down for lack of funds. If you would like to sponsor someone or host a group let us know. […] The complete summit content collection will be available on the password protected resource page. The downloadable audio and video of each session will be uploaded there and available for at least a year.

* New in French, but easily auto-translated, the open-access article “Tolkien et l’art des differentes echelles cosmiques” (‘Tolkien and the art of different cosmic scales’).

* And finally… “Dorothy L. Sayers’ Copy of Tolkien’s First Appearance in Book Form” came up for auction a few days ago. Which at least provides the rest of us with a look at the cover…

Surprisingly, the volume is not on Archive.org as a scan.

Tolkien Gleanings #106.

* The recent book In the House of Tom Bombadil now has a Group Study Guide and bundle. The Journal of Inklings Studies had an open-access review of the book.

* The Tolkien Society posted 14 new YouTube videos last week. These are talks from their recent conference on Numenor and its fall, by the look of them.

* Freely online, a PhD thesis for Marquette University, The Fantastic and the First World War (2019). Argues that what we would now recognise as modern fantasy was “an essential means of representing and responding” to what had happened, and was an attempt by soldiers to communicate wartime experiences to a wider public.

* New to me, the University Press of Kentucky book Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien (2006). It places, in the words of the Foreword, strong emphasis on “the old-fashioned language of stewardship” and has a short Afterword by Tom Shippey. Both of which sound promising. I also see that one of the two authors has a substantial bookstore talk “The Medieval Roots of Tolkien’s Philosophical Ideas” (2012) in audio at Archive.org.

* A new blog-post considers The Battle of Maldon…

“[there is a] tendency of a certain kind of historian to doubt or dismiss any story that has even the rudiments of a literary shape. [They fear] the intrusion of fiction into reality, or perhaps some shadowy figure reshaping raw material to suit a literary design. At worst, it represents deliberate falsehood with a political purpose — that is, propaganda. Tolkien here correctly inverts that suspicion.”

* And finally… “Contribute to Tolkien Gateway this month [July 2023] and you will be entered to win one of multiple prizes courtesy of [publisher] HarperCollins.”

Tolkien Gleanings #105.

* In Oxford, Tolkien’s Words and Worlds: An Academic Conference to Mark the 50th Anniversary of Tolkien’s Death. Set for 2nd–3rd September 2023, at Corpus Christi College, with exhibitions at Exeter and Merton College. Registering now. Looks like about £125 would get you an overnight room + lunch/refreshments, then your rail fare on top. Many people in the UK might do it for under £200.

Ugh, what a clash of unsuitable fonts. Pick better, next time.

* New on YouTube from the Thomistic Institute, “The Catholic Vision Of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings”. Professor Paul Gondreau’s… “talk was given on 14th March 2023 at Brown University” in Providence, New England. A bit slow to get going, and at the end de-railed by student questions about the screen adaptations (tip to lecturers: invite questions about the books only), but otherwise rather good.

* Tolkien scholar Charles E. Noad has passed away.

* On YouTube, Joseph Pearce newly interviewed on “How G.K. Chesterton Influenced Narnia & Middle-earth”.

* An International Congress on Chesterton, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 20th-23rd July 2023, seemingly with a large Mexican contingent flying in.

Interesting for the use of AI-gen portraits on the Congress flyer. AI tell-tales: sinister fantasy-painting like figures in the background of the Tolkien picture, and his nose is pointy/drooping; Chesterton’s glasses are not round and his neck-tie is not properly fitted under the collar; and the ear is too big on Lewis (unless he really did have huge ‘hobbit ears’).

* The Silmarillion Writers’ Guild — a leading Tolkien fan-fiction repository and forum — has just posted a call for an Assistant Art Editor (voluntary). Note that the site has a complete ban on AI assisted works.

* Descriptions for the Tolkien Collection at Marquette University in the USA. I hadn’t realised it was also effectively a Tolkien secondary research library, with fairly large sub-collections of choice “Secondary Material Relating to J.R.R. Tolkien, 1938-2015” and “Periodical Literature on Tolkien and Related Fantasy Writers, 1960-“, plus several large fandom collections. A library search of the Marquette Libraries catalogue will show you the titles of most published books there, via searches for ‘Tolkien’, ‘Middle-earth’, etc.

* And finally… a new Tolkien creature, the ‘bicycle-horse’, as found in part of a letter newly extracted from the book Wheelbarrows at Dawn. However Lovecraft did it first, as usual, when in middle-childhood he imagined himself a “bicycle-centaur”.

Tolkien Gleanings #104.

* Non-subscribers can learn what’s in Amon Hen #300, since Tolkien Gateway now has the TOCs. The 300th issue included, among others… “Memorable Moments in my Fifty Years in the Tolkien Society by Jessica Yates” and “My Father the Artist by Priscilla Tolkien”. I’m uncertain if that last has been seen before, or not.

* A call for papers for the U.S. Hybrid Kalamazoo, 9th-11th May 2024… “The ‘Tolkien at Kalamazoo’ area will be organizing six sessions for the 2024 conference: three are in-person, and three are virtual. The proposal deadline is 15th September.”

* On the University of Maryland YouTube channel, Book Launch: The Battle of Maldon by J.R.R. Tolkien (May 2023)… “Join [editor] Peter Grybauskas as he discusses [the new Maldon book] with Verlyn Flieger and Chip Crane” in a one-hour discussion.

* New on Archive.org to borrow, An Anglo-Saxon and Celtic bibliography (450-1087). Published in 1957 and thus perhaps useful to Tolkien scholars, being a snapshot of the available literature prior to The Lord of the Rings.

* New to me, The spiritual Tolkien milieu: a study of fiction-based religion (2014). The thesis is open-access under Creative Commons Attribution, and the PDFs are chapters to be found in a long sidebar. It finds that the attempt at forming a primary-world “spiritual Tolkien milieu is tiny”, and that these pioneering practitioners appear to focus on the elves.

* And finally… “First edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit found in a charity shop” in the UK. It went to eBay and raised £10,000 for cancer research.