Tolkien Gleanings #48.
* Now available, tickets for the Second Annual Tolkien Lecture with John Garth. To be given on a Friday evening, 12th May 2023 at the Elgar Concert Hall of Birmingham University (UK). Booking now on Eventbrite. I’ve never been in this Hall, but the venue sounds suitably large. Thus I imagine that the free tickets for “The Houses of Healing: Tolkien, Fantasy, and the Road to Recovery” won’t immediately all be taken.
* The Church of Scotland reports “Tolkien talk returns by popular demand”…
“J.R.R. Tolkien and The Hope of Easter”, Dr. Hood’s new talk will take place at 7pm on Wednesday 5th April 2023, and will also be streamed online.”
* In Canada on 30th March 2023, the public lecture titled “Tolkien, Middle-earth, and the Lost Inheritance of England”…
“Mark Doersken [discusses how Tolkien] sought to engage with the lost tales of pre-Conquest England and in the process changed the modern fantasy landscape. This talk is part of Literature Matters: Literature in the Community Series at the University of Saskatchewan.”
* Amazon UK is listing a new academic book of 230 pages, set for publication at the end of September 2023. Titled J.R.R. Tolkien in Central Europe: Context, Directions, and the Legacy. It’s a Routledge collection and, as you might expect from this publisher, the book sounds rather theoretical-political…
“The essays move between and across theories of cultural and social history, reception, adaptation and audience studies, and offer methodological reflections on the various cultural perceptions of Tolkien’s oeuvre and its impact on twenty-first century manifestations.” [also] examines the entanglement of fantasy and Central European political and cultural shifts […] across different domains from communist times through today.”
* And finally the Novium Museum in Chichester, England, launches ‘The Magic of Middle-earth’ exhibition on Saturday 1st April 2023. This is a large popular touring show, free at some venues but here with a £4 ticket price. The show will run through the summer and close on 24th September.