Tolkien Gleanings #87.
* Details of a forthcoming paper in the paywall journal Tolkien Studies, “An Archaeology of Hope and Despair in the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen”. Abstract only. Uses drafts… “available in the Tolkien Archives at Marquette University, only some of which have been previously published in The Peoples of Middle-earth, as well as one discovery in the Bodleian”.
* The latest Vol. 16 | No. 1 issue for the open-access Journal of Tolkien Research has posted the first two articles, including ““We Could Do with a Bit More Queerness in These Parts”: An Analysis of the Queer against the Peculiar, the Odd, and the Strange in The Lord of the Rings. This tries to detect some parallels with the sexual use of the word, but along the way has a very useful survey of similar words. These examples are presented in even more useful word-tables.
* A call for a forthcoming Tolkien Society Online Seminar 2023 on ‘Tolkien and Religion’, set for the end of November 2023. Deadline for papers: 8th September 2023. Seems to offer a wide scope, within the topic…
* “Tolkien: sua vida, suas obras”. Some details, on YouTube, of a June 2023 conference. Held in Brazil. The page lists five speakers, but not what they were speaking about.
* And finally, new on Archive.org to borrow is a so-so scan of Smaug: unleashing the dragon. A 100-page “making of” artbook which details the making of the magnificent Smaug in the movie version of The Hobbit. Whatever the many faults of the cinema release of The Hobbit, the 15-minute Smaug section wasn’t one of them. Actually, The Hobbit on the screen can be kind-of rescued. /Spoilers/ The “Empty Sea Edit” fan-edit is really very good… right up until the dwarves tip out of their barrels at Laketown. At that point you immediately stop watching and switch to Bluefax’s unabridged cast + music audio version. Listen through Laketown, finding the secret entrance to the mountain, and right up until the point when Bilbo goes down the tunnel. Then go back to the movie for a visual Smaug. After the short Smaug section, nothing can rescue the rest of the movie… so it’s back to Bluefax and headphones to finish.