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Talks on Tolkien II: Dimitra Fimi on Tolkien & Childhood Studies
This week’s talk by Dimitra Fimi applies concepts from childhood studies to Tolkien’s fiction. She begins by pointing out that the concept of childhood is a social construction that varies in different cultures and times, and then goes on to examine Tolkien’s ideas aboutĀ childhood inĀ “Laws and Customs of the Eldar,” The Children of…
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“something has gone crack”; Tolkien on Rob Gilson & the TCBS, 100 years ago today.
On August 12, 1916 Tolkien wrote a letter to Geoffrey Smith, with permission to pass it on to Christopher Wiseman, trying to come to terms with the death of their friend Rob Gilson. It took some time for the news of Rob’s death on the first day of the Somme offensive, July 1st, to reach…
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Talks on Tolkien II: Patrick Curry on Enchantment & Hypermodernity
This week, I turn to the work of Patrick Curry, best known to Tolkien readers as the author of Defending Middle-earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity (revised edition Houghton Mifflin, 2004) and Deep Roots in a Time of Frost: Essays on Tolkien (Walking Tree 2014); his publications also include works such as Ecological Ethics: An Introduction…