Tolkien Gleanings #434
* Inkings Quarterly newsletter brings news that The Inklings Project is offering teaching fellowships for classroom teachers of U.S. school grades 6–12 (translates as ages 11 to 18). Deadline: 1st August 2026.
* The Inklings Quarterly also notes the 2026 “Undiscovered C.S. Lewis Conference” at George Fox University in Sepember 2026. On pursuing the speaker list, I note a keynote talk from John Garth on “The Undiscovered J.R.R. Tolkien”.
* New to me, the open-access journal Fandom | Cultures | Research, from the University of Marburg in Germany. Four issues so far, with some German but mostly English items. No Tolkien fandom items as yet. But the latest issue has a review of the book The Politics of Fantasy: Magic, Children‘s Literature, and Fandom in Putin’s Russia, while earlier issues have a couple of conference reports on the topic of doing archival / historical research on fandoms. (The journal and its fellow Marburg journals were not on JURN, but I’ve now indexed them).
* Talking of archival materials… new on Archive.org is a scan of Computer Games magazine for January 2003. Which was a Lord of the Rings special-issue.
Has an informed article surveying the history of relevant fantasy RPG videogames, with a timeline. Plus a discussion across two articles on Tolkien’s influence on videogames to 2003. The second of these is from Daniel Greenberg, then “the Creative Director for the Tolkien Franchise”…
“Middle-earth has plenty of magic. Not the promiscuous magic-inflation of Dungeons & Dragons, but magic intertwines everything in Middle-earth [and it also offers] plenty of overt spells, cast not just by Wizards, but by Dwarves, Elves, Men, Wraiths, Dark Lords, etc. (Everyone but Hobbits). However, in order to tell a story about the little guy (literally) making a difference, the powerful magicians must be offstage most of the time. Some confuse this with a lack of magic in Middle-earth. Middle-earth also has lots of treasure hunts. The Hobbit is all about a treasure hunt. To a dungeon-like fortress. To kill a dragon. The Lord of the Rings is a treasure hunt, too, only in reverse. [And with plenty of RPG-like ‘valuable loot use’ as well]”.
* The annual conference of Germany’s Society for Fantasy Research will discuss the theme of ‘Violence and Fantasy’. Set to be held at the University of Cologne, 17th-19th September 2026.
* And finally… RAMzine reports that the band Hubris take on J.R.R. Tolkien for their White Shores album, and that the band will be touring the UK in October 2026…
“Swiss post-rock band Hubris are heading into Middle-earth. The instrumental quartet from Fribourg have built four albums on Greek mythology, but composer and founder Jonathan Hohl has turned to the source he keeps coming back to. […] More than a fantasy tribute, [their new studio album] White Shores sits with J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing on mortality and immortality.”
The album is not yet released, but the eight-minute lead track is free online, on Bandcamp.