Tolkien Gleanings #249
* I see that a new issue of the rolling Journal of Tolkien Research is underway, with the first posted essay being “Some notes on Seth Kreeger’s “Metaphysical Considerations in Ea””. Freely available online.
* Alas, not me examines “The Repentance of Angels: a Curious Departure in Tolkien”. Freely available online.
* We now have On Tolkien and Theology: Part II in which… “Douglas Estes joins the podcast once again to discuss the second volume of a collection of essays he edited on theology in the works and worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien.” Part one of this podcast interview was posted back in February 2024. Freely available online.
* Forthcoming from Kent State University Press, the academic book Finding the Numinous: An Ecocritical Look at Dune and the Lord of the Rings, due at the end of February 2025. In 176-pages the author suggests that…
“these imagined worlds’ environments are sacred spaces fundamental to understanding these texts and their authors’ purposes. [The author] applies Tolkien’s three functions of fantasy — recovery, escape, and consolation — to demonstrate how both authors’ works are intrinsically connected to their ecocritical messages and overarching moral philosophies.”
* A review of the “first publication of J.R.R. Tolkien’s collected poems”, with some additional advice on the book’s potential as a Christmas present…
“be forewarned: this book is not for the faint of heart. Its massive scope, and the academic presentation of the material, are better suited to the Tolkien scholar than the casual reader — certainly not the one who leapfrogs the songs in The Lord of the Rings.”
* Freely available on YouTube, “Lewis, Tolkien, and the Founding of the Inklings”… “In this charming conversation, host Eric Metaxas interviews philologist Simon Horobin on his new book C.S. Lewis’s Oxford.”
* Here in the UK the editors of our venerable Victoria County History series invite new original ghost stories, presumably related to the sort of precise British local history that the VCH volumes so ably supply. I can imagine a tale in which the shade of Tolkien appears, perhaps peeved by a mistake in explicating some tree-ish place-name.
* And finally, lucky University of Maryland students are able to take a two-week “Tolkien & Lewis in Oxford” study-and-visits course in England, in July 2025. Including visits to… “Birmingham, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution”… hmmm, well… I think Ironbridge and the Black Country might have something to say about that claim. Perhaps a short lecture for the students on “Gullible tourists, profitable places, and the invention of tradition in England” might be suitably enlightening, detailing the ways in which the invention of tradition has long been a popular English tradition.