Tolkien Gleanings #100.

* The latest Providence magazine uses Tolkien to offer thoughts on “Ambiguity and Violence: A Christian Perspective”. Freely available online.

* What looks like a new PhD for the University of Montreal, “Une interpretation semiotique de On Fairy-Stories: la formulation d’un modele Tolkienien du plurimonde et de l’experience fictionnelle” (2023). (‘A Semiotic Interpretation of “On Fairy-Stories”: Formulating a Tolkienian Model of Secondary Worlds and Fictional Experiences’). This appears to ask which of the academic semiotic models might best fit Tolkien, and then derives and refines a new ‘Tolkienian model’. Freely available online, in French.

* Freely available online, the Portuguese essay “Boromir, Um heroi imperfeito” (‘Boromir, the imperfect hero’). A chapter from the new Portuguese book J.R.R. Tolkien: Construtor de Mundos. Personagens, Lugares e Adaptacoes (2023). Which also includes essays in Portuguese on “Sauron and his many names”; “On Beorn”; “Aragorn and Anduril: the representation of the hero and the medieval sword”; “On Norse Mythological Geography” and others. Seems to be the first in a planned series of books. What may be the book’s website at almedina.net is currently not responding to a request from the UK.

* This weekend sees the Tolkien Magellan Society annual Council event, with talks and exhibitions and at least one life-sized troll…

They also do a very nice line in event posters…

The Sociedad Tolkien Magallanes appears to be in Patagonia, South America.

* Nearby in Chile, South America, a two-day ‘Tolkien Opera’ event in July 2023…

“Amigos de la Opera present a two-day cycle of song dedicated to the famous British author J.R.R. Tolkien. The voices of Violeta Juanez Rojas and Lili Cortes will breath life into the writer’s verses, accompanied on piano by Maria Rey Carmona and Toni Pons. They will also perform a series of songs published in 1967. The final day will also feature talks by different experts on the many aspects of Tolkien’s life and work”.