Tolkien Gleanings #120.

* Ateneo de Manila University’s Events at the School of Humanities this September Web page includes news of a free lecture by the venerable Tom Shippey, titled “Sixty Years of J.R.R. Tolkien”. Set for 27th September 2023. “Online attendance option available”, and booking now. At the Department of English, so I assume it will be given in English.

* There’s to be a major Tolkien exhibition at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Roma (GNAM), Italy’s national contemporary arts museum. This was announced verbally at a festival in early July 2023, by the GNAM director. Update: Thanks to Sebastiano Tassinari for getting the exhibition’s title, “J.R.R. Tolkien 1973-2023, Man – Professor – Author” and the dates. It will run from 14th November 2023 to January 2024. It will be a mid-sized show of 150 items.

* CCS Universe notes “Astronomer Keynotes at International Conference Celebrating Middle-earth”…

“CCSU astronomer Dr. Kristine Larsen was one of two keynote speakers at the 50th Oxonmoot conference in Oxford last weekend […]. Her talk, focusing on letters Tolkien wrote to his children for over 20 years in the guise of Father Christmas, included references to eclipses, comets, constellations, and most especially auroras. In particular, she demonstrated how Tolkien’s artistic renditions of aurora in specific years echoed displays witnessed by astronomers in his native England.”

I didn’t see this on the official list of presentations, which I looked at in an earlier Tolkien Gleanings. Perhaps because it was a keynote talk, listed apart from the regular presentations?

* In Mexico, the event Tolkien: La fantasia del libro al mundo digital in September 2023.

* From Bangor University, via The Conversation, How J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired by medieval poems of northern bravery. A short article under Creative Commons Attribution.

“Fifty years on from Tokien’s death, that spirit of northern bravery endures as an alluring concept. What makes Tolkien’s fantastical world so appealing is the recurrent suggestion that the courage manifested to defeat the big monsters in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is the very same courage that can be found in hopeless situations of a more ordinary sort.”

* Charles Williams expert Sorina Higgins this week reports several projects underway…

  – An article on Tolkien’s only play, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son.
  – A book [on Williams], An Introduction to The Oddest Inkling.
  – My life’s work! The long-anticipated Annotated Arthuriad of Charles Williams.

* And finally, France.info visits the Lamb & Flag pub in Oxford, recently re-opened as a community-run venture and reportedly doing a roaring trade.