Monthly Archives: August 2016

Talks on Tolkien II: Dimitra Fimi on Tolkien & Childhood Studies

16 Tuesday Aug 2016

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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 about  childhood in  “Laws and Customs of the Eldar,” The Children of Hurin, and The Lord of the Rings.

Dr. Fimi’s forthcoming monograph is on Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy, which is part of the Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature series (http://www.palgrave.com/de/series/14930). In the book, Dr. Fimi explores the Celtic sources and perceptions of “Celticity” in the works of authors such as Lloyd Alexander, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, Jenny Nimmo, and Pat O’Shea, as well as much more recent works by Henry H. Neff, Catherine Fisher, Kate Thompson.

Dimitra Fimi’s other books deal directly with Tolkien: Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History (Palgrave, 2008) and most recently the co-edited book with Andrew Higgins, A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages (HarperCollins, 2016). You can find out more about her research and teaching on her website, http://dimitrafimi.com.

Her presentation, “Constructions of Childhood in Tolkien’s Legendarium,” was given at Oxonmoot in September 2015 and can be found on the Tolkien Society YouTube channel.

 

 

“something has gone crack”; Tolkien on Rob Gilson & the TCBS, 100 years ago today.

12 Friday Aug 2016

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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 the other three, who were serving in the war in various places. They wrote to each other trying to make sense of the loss of their close friend. The four of them had been members of a group formed while they were at King Edward’s School called the TCBS — the Tea Club and Barrovian Society — but by the time they were in university the friendship and shared values of the core members — Tolkien, Wiseman, Smith, and Gilson — had inspired them with great ambitions for their future. But with the news of Rob’s death, Tolkien’s August 12th letter to Geoffrey Smith admits that he is disheartened and lonely, feeling as if the dreams of the TCBS had come to an end. Tolkien writes that he has spent the last two nights sitting and thinking in the woods near his camp: “So far my chief impression is that something has gone crack” (Letter 5).

As Tolkien scholars and readers, we usually see the story in this way, primarily as it relates to John Ronald. However, Elliander Pictures has produced a documentary on Rob Gilson which allows us a glimpse of the young man himself who was so important to the idealistic members of the TCBS.  Elliander Pictures’ previous film, Tolkien’s Great War, is also well worth watching. In both documentaries, you will see Tolkien scholar John Garth, whose book Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth is an authoritative scholarly source on the subject. You can find the previous film, Tolkien’s Great War, and information about John Garth’s work here.

ROBERT GILSON: Memoirs of an Infantry Officer from Elliander Pictures on Vimeo.

 

Talks on Tolkien II: Patrick Curry on Enchantment & Hypermodernity

07 Sunday Aug 2016

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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 (revised edition, Polity Press, 2011) as well as many papers in journals and collections. He is a Canadian-born writer and scholar who has lived in London, England for over forty years. He holds a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from University College London and has been a lecturer at the University of Kent and Bath Spa University.

I’ve said that I wanted this Talks on Tolkien summer series to focus on interdisciplinary Tolkien studies, and Dr. Curry’s research is a good example. In trying to define his approach to Tolkien or his field of research, I’ve considered ecotheory, politics, cultural studies, philosophy, religious studies, history of science, literature … any one of these labels would suit and yet not cover the whole picture.

In the following talk, “The Third Road: Faerie in Hypermodernity,” recorded in 2011, Dr. Curry takes the concept of enchantment, primarily as defined by Tolkien, and examines how enchantment and disenchantment exist in our culture. Looking at the works of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Philip Pullman, he concludes with some thoughts on “hypermodernity.”

Dr. Curry has a wonderfully informative website where you can see a list of his books and his essays, reviews, and talks, with downloadable PDFs of many of them: http://www.patrickcurry.co.uk/.

 

As always, please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.