Tolkien Gleanings #61.

* Call for Papers: Creative Philology… “Signum University Press is pleased to announce a call for papers on Philology for an anthology in honour of Professor J.R.R. Tolkien”. Several suggestions lean towards the ‘invented languages’ crowd, but one may offer scope for historians… “The implicit or explicit role, place, and/or impact of philology and philological awareness in public life and popular culture.” Note there is no time-frame specified in this suggestion. Deadline for abstracts: 31st July 2023.

* A Masters dissertation “Writing for the Fantasy Genre through the Christian Worldview” (2023), for Liberty University. Wide ranging, but a key suggestion appears to be that a tale’s “Christian worldview” should allow an author to depict “magic akin to Christian miracles” — even though some in the Bible Belt might think it looks pagan.

* The Elrond’s Library website has been taken offline. It had a large A-Z listing of known Tolkien translations. The Tolkien Collector’s Guide is said to be ingesting the “data” from the site, but I’m uncertain if they’ll also take the site’s PDF essay on “Tolkien and Iceland” (in French). In which case, the Web link I give here goes to the Wayback Machine and an archived PDF.

* The Retreat, Rednal. You’re welcome… happy bidding.

* And finally, the YouTube channel Mapster takes a new eagle’s-eye view of Tolkien’s Incredible Map of Middle-earth (May 2023, 24 minutes). No wobbly hand-held cameras, dim lighting or clunky sound. This is a slick semi-pro production with a Steadicam and slow pans-and-zooms. As such I guess it stands a chance of being taken off YouTube due to copyright, so you may want to download a copy to keep.