Tolkien Gleanings #310
* The Glasgow University Repository is back online. Turns out that the new “The creative uses of Irish literature in works by J.R.R. Tolkien” (2025) is indeed a PhD thesis. 300+ pages of… “the first book-length, systematic critical analysis of the role of Irish literature in Tolkien’s legendarium”. Freely available online.
* The New York City Tolkien Conference… ” will take place at Baruch College [central New York City] on Thursday, 31st July 2025.
– Nicholas Birns on his new book The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien.
– Donato Giancola, on visions of Middle-earth from an artist’s perspective.
– Kristine Larsen on “Immeasurable Halls and Dreamlike Forms: Tracing the Caves of Cheddar Gorge Throughout Tolkien’s Legendarium”.
* IMC Leeds 2025 is happening next week in the UK. Among other papers to be presented are…
– “Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s Interpretation of an Academic Teacher”.
– Kristine Larsen on “The Light of Learning: Medieval Scholar-Kings and Loremasters in the Line of Earendil”.
– “Portrayals of Learning in The Lord of the Rings versus Tolkien’s Other Work”.
– “Creating a ‘Red Book’: Hobbits, Tolkien, and Irish Monks”.
* Holly Ordway has a long conference report on The Christian Consonance of Middle-earth, with pictures.
* Newly added to the current rolling issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research, the Kristine Larsen conference paper “A Time of Fire and Cataclysm: The Centrality of Cosmic War in Tolkien’s Round World Cosmologies”. With a specific focus here on the Sun and the Moon. Freely available online.
* A new undergraduate final-year dissertation “Manhood and War in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: A Hobbit’s Perspective” (2025). Freely available online.
* From Hungary, the new Hungarian book Prakticna primjena GIS alata: primijenjeni zadatci. 20 years of digital mapping and maps (‘GIS’) teaching materials, presented as a textbook and manual for beginners on a university course…
“To bring our reader closer to our tasks and examples, we used the terrains of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, taking the reader through the cities, wetlands, mountains and volcanoes of Tolkien’s imaginary world and showing the preparation of maps and the importance of GIS. The idea of our manual is to get acquainted with the benefits of GIS through the independent production of a Middle-earth map, and thus to overcome frustrations in the use of GIS tools. You can buy a book at the University Bookstore Citadeli and through a web shop for 15 euros.”
* Probing The Prophecy of Tolkien Revealed, this being a 2022 Catholic book that sought to position Tolkien as a prophet of doom, one who foresaw the coming dangers of artificial intelligence.
* Talking of radical technology that was supposed to change everything, if you’re in Oxford this summer then an exhibition may offer some deep historical context for ‘Tolkien in the 1920s-1940s’. “Listen In: How Radio Changed the Home” runs until 31st August 2025 at the Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries. There’s a related new book…
“The book explores how, over the first forty years of the twentieth century, a coldly utilitarian box of crude electronics became as much a part of the warm fabric of home as the parlour rug”.
* The Oxford Centre for Fantasy brings news of ‘Here Be Dragons’ events set for the autumn of 2025… “We are partnering with the Story Museum in a festival of dragons. Our emphasis will be on illustration”. The Story Museum will have several exhibitions on the theme, plus a puppetry day and… “three days of workshops for young people aged 8-12”. Booking now.
* Forthcoming is Doomed to Die: The Gift of Iluvatar — The A-Z of Death in Tolkien, suitably set for a Halloween 2025 release. Only 96 pages of what’s billed as a… “darkly satirical illustrated parody of the Tolkien universe”. But it’s apparently also an assiduous gleaning of the various deaths in Tolkien, and the handy A-Z format suggests it may still have some use as a quick look-up guide for scholars.
* The apparently substantial new book The War for Middle-earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933–1945 lands in paperback on 17th July 2025, now less than two weeks away. Amazon UK seems unsure of the Kindle ebook release date, and the Amazobot can only suggest 2076.
* And finally… a very well written pitch-sheet for ten major Silmarillion projects, yet to be made as adaptations.