Tolkien Gleanings #386
* A new PhD thesis from Dalhousie University, “I do not desire healing”: Grief as Identity in Medieval (ist) Literatures (2026). This has chapters or sub-chapters on: melancholic pronouns in The Lord of the Rings; Eowyn disguising herself as Dernhelm; and grief/death in relation to Luthien and Arwen. Freely available online.
* Some more details about the coming screen series “Forge of Friendship”. Set to be… “five hour-long documentaries” with interviews, music and re-enactments, exploring the friendship of Lewis and Tolkien…
“There is no set release date, but we are moving into post-production.” When asked, the [filmmakers, after showing a one-hour preview cut] said “We are waiting on more funding, but it could potentially be released this year.”
* The Independent Review reviews Tolkien, Philosopher of War (2024).
* Apparently set for publication by De Gruyter in June 2026, according to Amazon UK, Tolkien Spirituality: Constructing Belief and Tradition in Fiction-based Religion. Possibly just a printing of this 2014 open-access Phd thesis, but I guess there’s a chance it could be an updated and expanded version for print? By the same author, “Religious uses of fantasy fiction”, an open-access chapter for the Routledge Handbook of Fiction and Belief (2023).
* Midland History journal has a review of the book C.S. Lewis’s Oxford (2024) ($ paywall). As a Midlander I’ve never thought of Oxford as being in the English Midlands, but it squeezes in here.
* Seemingly popping out of embargo this week at a university repository, “Tolkien and Trees”, a book chapter from 2013.
* Tolkien artist Miriam Ellis is anticipating… “my forthcoming book, A Shire Walking-Party” and a new blog post gives a preview of her thoughts on the appearance of Woodhall.
* “Oxford, Physics, and the Day I Saw Tolkien Summon Henry”…
“In the fall of 1970, I arrived at Oxford University as a first-term undergraduate reading physics at Merton College. […] I would often see J.R.R. Tolkien wandering around the College in his half-cloak, walking stick in hand. He was already elderly, already legendary, yet physically present: a small, unmistakable figure moving through the same quads I crossed on my way to hall.”
“Small” probably indicates distance, rather than that he shrunk to hobbit-size in old age.
* And finally, a UK local newspaper reports Vintage recordings of The Hobbit unearthed on Metro line in Tyne and Wear.