Tolkien Gleanings #373
* This weekend University of Chicago professor Rachel Fulton Brown asked “Why was life-long Catholic J.R.R. Tolkien so obsessed with magic?”, in which she considered Tolkien’s own understanding of magic and story. This YouTube talk is accompanied by her equally-long talk on “Tolkien’s Magic Tree”, which considers the ‘tree’ of Tolkien’s historical spiritual influences, in terms of their stances towards claims of magic. Freely available online.
* At the Diocese of Grand Rapids in March 2026, a talk on “Tolkien and Technology”… “Dr. Bradley Birzer, professor of history at Hillsdale College and fellow of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, to speak on technological themes in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien”.
* The latest Heightscast podcast considers the place of Tolkien in Middle School classrooms in the USA. An educational term which there indicates schooling for pupils aged 12-14.
* Dr Lynn Forest-Hill’s blog has a new January post which anticipates for 2026 putting… “together all the research I have done over the last 10 years into a book tracing the history of the story of the Bevis romance from its 10th century background to the twentieth century”. She also notes a forthcoming “study day on Sir Bevis” in Southampton in August 2026.
* Spanish Tolkien site Elfenomeno has posted a new English complete screenplay for Tolkien’s “Smith of Wootton Major”. Freely available online.
* The movie magazine Empire will have a special March 2026 issue for the 25th anniversary of the cinema release of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first movie in the LoTR adaptation. On the news-stands any day now.
* And finally… New on YouTube, a compilation of all the appearances of the character ‘J.R.R. Tolkien The Writer’ in Fackham Hall (2025). A movie which passed me by, not being an Empire reader, but which appears to be a sort of spoof/parody of the famous British TV series Downton Abbey.
