Tolkien Gleanings #108.
* A new Tolkien Society one-day seminar event, Secondary Believers, Secondary Worlds: Tolkien and Religion in the Twenty-First Century. Set for 26th November 2023. The call-for-papers is now live, with a 8th September 2023 deadline. The organisers of the….
“seminar welcome fresh and innovative treatments of the generative interactivity between Tolkien’s fiction, Tolkien’s faith, and the faith (or lack thereof) of the readers [who draw on Middle-earth].”
* New in Fields: journal of Huddersfield student research, “How Architecture Expresses Character Traits in Middle-earth: analysing the great dwarven cities of Moria & Erebor”.
* The Guild of St George offers “A Tolkien reading walk” in early September 2023. It’s said that this is just one event, as… “the Bewdley Museum and Ruskin Land are holding a Tolkien weekend in Bewdley, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham”. But there are no further details at present, other than the walk. Bewdley is a town in the Worcestershire countryside, about six miles the other side of The Black Country, in the West Midlands of England. The event is not listed on the Museum’s “What’s On” page, and I don’t see any associated exhibition (yet). Though I guess there may well be scope for a small regional show which celebrates Tolkien’s connections with Worcestershire, and then tours the county’s libraries and museums.
* I see that a recent series of online lectures has been and gone. “Tolkien, Christianity, and Art” was offered by the Lumen Christi Institute, 18th – 22nd July 2023.
* A call for papers for a pre-Halloween meeting on Medieval Monstrosities (Illinois Medieval Association). Submissions are due by 15th September 2023.
* And finally… new on Archive.org to borrow, the book Fantasy and Science-Fiction Medievalisms (2015). This includes an opening survey of “Low-culture Receptions of Tolkien’s High Fantasy”. And, by sheer co-incidence, the new Tolkien Pop! on Substack. The author discusses Tolkien’s influence on “various pop cultural artefacts”.