Tolkien Gleanings #248

* Due in a few days from Cambridge University Press, the academic book Theology and the Mythic Sensibility: Human Myth-Making and Divine Creativity. The blurb is short and unhelpful, but a text found elsewhere reveals that Tolkien is discussed. The cover appears to use artwork by Ian Miller.

* New at The European Conservative magazine, the long essay “Swallowed by the Dragon: Monstrous Meanings in Tolkien’s Stories”.

* Another set of long online lectures in which Rachel Fulton-Brown sets about exploring Tolkien. Her ‘The Forge of Tolkien’ set was previously paywalled, but is now being slowly and freely posted to YouTube. This batch of releases includes ‘On Fairy Stories’, ‘Magic Words’, ‘The Olde Speech’, ‘The Voice of Saruman’, and several more.

* J.R.R. Jokien Essays Vol. I – 2023. A new ebook of essays from the “humorous, sometimes earnest” Jokien with Tolkien blog, previously paywalled at Substack/Patreon. Judging by the titles, I assume the essays are from the “earnest” side of the venture.

* In the USA, a travelling stage production I don’t think I’d noticed before. Christmas with C.S. Lewis is… “set during a 1962 visit to Lewis by holidaying Americans”. Judging by the blurb it also has flashbacks featuring Tolkien.

* The latest open-access Journal for Religion, Film and Media is themed around ‘Escaping the Moment: Time Travel as a Negotiation of Transcendence’ (November 2024). The issue also has a call-for-papers for a future issue on ‘Death, Loss and Mourning in Film and Media’.

* Seemingly newly ingested at The Free Library, a full-text run of the journal Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature (1997-2024). Has a couple of Tolkien and Lewis articles.

* And finally, a new and pleasing page of hobbit penmanship from MatejCadil, “Oliphaunt”.