This is the third post showcasing the work of some of my students in my Tolkien and medievalism class this year. You can find Part 1 and Part 2 at these links. As I’ve explained in previous posts, I give my students the option of creating an adaptation in any medium of Tolkien’s work or of a medieval text and then writing an analysis of what they have done.
Today’s feature is by Rebecca Foster, whose video, “Misty Mountains,” appears here with her permission. Rebecca takes as her inspiration the song “Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold” in The Hobbit. She wanted to represent how the song takes Bilbo into his imagination, which she illustrates with her watercolours to accompany the poem. Her essay discussed Tolkien’s ideas on imagination, the relation between Primary and Secondary worlds, and included research on Tolkien’s artwork — perhaps you’ll detect his influence!
“Misty Mountains.” Copyright Rebecca Foster. Posted with permission.
Anna Smol, “Adaptation as Analysis: Creative Work in an English Classroom.” Fandom as Classroom Practice: A Teaching Guide, edited by Katherine Anderson Howell, U of Iowa P, 2018, pp. 17 – 31 and 147-50.
This is the second in a series showcasing student projects in my Tolkien and medievalism course this year. Given the option of producing an adaptation of a medieval text or a work by Tolkien, my students can sometimes surprise me in their creative choices, as did Jordan Audas, who created Silmarillion collectible “toys” — with a touch of humour.
I’ve written about the purpose of these adaptation projects in Katherine Howell’s volume, Fandom as Classroom Practice. Further information and links can be found here.
Jordan wrote an essay on Tolkien fandom and merchandising and then considered themes of evil and death in The Silmarillion as the background for his meticulous workmanship in building his Silmarillion collectibles. Each one of his collectibles deals with an ephemeral, intangible moment in Tolkien’s legends dealing with death. Would you still want to collect them?
With Jordan’s permission, here are his collectibles:
Top row: Glaurung’s Smoke, Beren’s Hand, Morgoth and Ungoliant’s Great Darkness. Bottom row: Fingon’s Dust, Feanor’s Ashes, and the back view of all the boxes.Click on an image for the slideshow.All images copyright of Jordan Audas.
Anna Smol, “Adaptation as Analysis: Creative Work in an English Classroom.” Fandom as Classroom Practice: A Teaching Guide, edited by Katherine Anderson Howell, U of Iowa P, 2018, pp. 17 – 31 and 147-50.
As usual, students in my Studies in Medievalism course have created wonderful projects to demonstrate their engagement with our texts and to experience first-hand the process of adaptation, a main theme in our seminar.
I’ve written about this type of assignment before in my essay “Adaptation as Analysis: Creative Work in an English Classroom” that is in Katherine Anderson Howell’s volume, Fandom as Classroom Practice: A Teaching Guide (U of Iowa Press, 2018). One of the student projects illustrated and discussed in that essay can be seen here and a review of another year in the course is posted here.
In today’s post I’d like to share, with his permission, Dillon Hughson’s adaptation project, a modernized version of the Old Icelandic poem “Hárbarðsljóð” or “Harbard’s Song” that appears in the Poetic Edda. This is a “flyting” poem — a contest of insults between two people, in this case Thor and Harbard, a ferryman who is usually identified as Odin in disguise. As do all the students in my course, Dillon had to write an analysis of the source text and explain how he adapted it. He researched the elements of a flyting and then tried to reproduce those features by placing Thor and Odin in a modern comedic context.
Enjoy his video! And watch for more student projects posted here in the weeks ahead.
With the permission of Dillon Hughson. Written and directed by Dillon Hughson. Thor: Matthew Hughson. Odin: Brennan Hughson.Copyright Dillon Hughson.
These sessions will be co-sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Studies and the Tolkien Studies areas:
Bruce E. Drushel, Ph.D. Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Studies
Department of Media, Journalism, & Film
Miami University
Oxford OH 45056
drushebe@miamioh.edu
Robin Anne Reid, Ph.D. Tolkien Studies Department of Literature and Languages
A&M University-Commerce
Commerce, TX 75429
Robin.Reid@tamuc.edu
We wish to organize at least one paper session and one roundtable for the conference. PCA allows presenters to participate in one paper session and in one roundtable.
Submit a title and 100-word abstract with a working bibliography, a mailing address, institutional affiliation, and e-mail address to both area chairs by September 28, 2017. Please indicate clearly whether your proposal is for the paper session, or for the roundtable. If you wish to participate in both, you must submit two different proposals.
Presentations may focus on any aspect of textual production, audience reception, or textual coding that challenge established categories of gender and sexuality including but not limited to:
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans* or queer readings of Tolkien’s or Jackson’s texts;
Readings that focus on non-normative but not clearly marked expressions of gender and sexuality in Tolkien’s or Jackson’s texts;
Transformative or derivative works that queer Tolkien’s or Jackson’s texts;
Intersectional queer readings of Tolkien’s or Jackson’s texts;
Queer Theories/Theorists and Tolkien studies (including historical and biographical aspects as well as fiction and scholarship).
Plans for a Queer Tolkien Studies anthology (co-edited by Robin Anne Reid, Christopher Vaccaro, and Stephen Yandell) will be discussed at the PCA sessions.
Organizer Robin Reid has sent out a call for papers for the Tolkien Studies area at the 2018 Popular Culture Association conference, to be held March 28-31 in Indianapolis, IN, US.
Below is a copy of the CFP, also available for download here: PCA 2018 CFP [pdf]
PCA/ACA 2018 NATIONAL CONFERENCE TOLKIEN STUDIES AREA CFP J.W. MARRIOTT INDIANAPOLIS DOWNTOWN, INDIANAPOLIS, IN MARCH 28-31, 2018
The Tolkien Studies Area welcomes proposals for papers or sessions in any area of Tolkien Studies (the Legendarium, adaptations, reader reception and fan studies, source studies, cultural studies, tourism studies, literary studies, medieval and medievalist studies, media and marketing) from any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective. Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per paper session. Roundtables may have five-seven speakers. Currently proposed sessions we are especially interested in filling are: Queer Tolkien Studies and The Future of Tolkien Studies.
To submit your paper or panel proposal, go to http://ncp.pcaaca.org and follow the instructions for creating an account and making your submission. ALL submissions must be made through the conference submission site.
For individual papers, please submit a title and 100-word abstract with a working bibliography. For roundtables or complete paper sessions, please submit titles and abstracts for all papers, along with a paragraph describing the central theme and the names of chairs, participants, and respondents (if any). For each participant, please provide a mailing address, institutional affiliation, and e-mail address.
Key Dates:
Jul 1. Database Opens for Submissions
Oct 1. Registration Opens
Oct 1. Deadline for Paper Proposals
Oct 15. All Sessions Entered into the Database by Area Chairs
Nov 15. Early Bird Registration Rate Ends
Dec 1. Preliminary Program Available
Dec 15. “Drop Dead” Date: Participants Not Registered Removed from Program
Jan 1, 2018. Final Program to Publisher
I’ve filed away my course notes and given out the final grades. ENGL 4475: Tolkien & Myth-making is officially over for the 2016-17 academic year. The project proposals, annotated bibliographies, abstracts, research papers, and exams are all done now. What’s left is my delight at the many ways my students found to explore Tolkien’s fiction in relation to adaptation, medievalism, and fandom.
Gift of lembas by a student from ENGL 4475
Our last class of the year is a celebration of the work students have done. We set up in a party room with snacks and drinks and read excerpts from each other’s essays. After all, it’s more interesting if you’re writing for your peers and not just for your teacher. My students then present their research projects to the rest of the seminar. I give them a range of general options for these projects, from studying Tolkien’s adaptations of texts such as Beowulf to producing their own adaptations based on Tolkien’s fiction. Because this is a senior-level English course, all of the projects require a written researched analysis of the texts and, if relevant, of the students’ process of adaptation or their participation in fandom.
On presentation day, the class had assembled around the seminar table but for one student, who at the last moment made quite an entrance in full costume, much to our delight. Gavin Rollins’ project was about cosplay, but he didn’t just write about it; he arrived as a living example of his research. (He also brought us some delicious lembas).
Part of Gavin Rollins’ cosplay project
Gavin’s paper dealt with the immersive, communal experience of cosplay and the intertextuality of Tolkien’s fiction and Jackson’s films.
A couple of other students were thinking along the same lines when they conducted their study of Dungeons and Dragons gaming. Andrew Potter used his and his friends’ experiences to investigate the question, can a D&D adventure feel like a “faerian drama“? Andrew’s answer is maybe, and certainly more likely than the experience of playing a video game or watching a film.
Luke Hammond (centre) and his D&D research team
Luke Hammond created his own D&D-style adventure based on Tolkien’s Mines of Moria episode and experimented with his friends in a campaign lasting several hours to see how Tolkien’s place descriptions worked (they worked well) and what kind of choices would be made by players who didn’t know the books or the movies. (Turns out the Frodo-character put on the Ring every chance he could get!). Luke’s analysis also considered how the role-playing genre could fulfill Tolkien’s ideas expressed in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” about fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation.
Image from diceaholic.wordpress.com
It would take too long to summarize every student’s project, but at least I can give you a taste of the variety we enjoyed. Courtney Francis wrote about Legolas/Gimli fanfiction; Megan Bruce about surveillance in The Lord of the Rings, including her poem about Galadriel’s mirror as a surveillance tool. Nicole Martina tackled Tolkien’s descriptive landscapes and his artistic style. And Allyson Roussy adapted the Old English poem “Widsith,” in which a widely-travelled poet recounts all the great rulers and places he has been, thus recording legends and histories in his verse. Allyson transposed the style of “Widsith” to the history of Middle-earth, beginning with Silmarillion tales and ending with The Lord of the Rings. Her speaker is Gandalf, someone who has travelled widely and seen a great deal in Middle-earth. Although she does not attempt to write consistently in alliterative verse, she typically captures the four-beat style of her Old English model. Here is a passage spoken by Gandalf:
…I acted as guide in the war against Sauron. I counselled men and elves and exiles, sought those who desired to aid our cause, who strengthened the armies of Middle-earth. I was with Aragorn, of the House of Isildur, Beren’s mirror, with Barahir’s ring, last heir to the throne of Gondor and Arnor, A true leader with patience and humility, The hands of a healer and the hands of a king….
Film adaptations of Tolkien’s work also provided fertile ground for analysis. Kimia Nejat studied Jackson’s film representations of Frodo and Sam. Samantha VanNorden, starting with the premise that Middle-earth is a character in The Lord of the Rings, analyzed Jackson’s representations of certain landscapes. And Alexandra Rudderham examined Tolkien’s representation of Galadriel along with the film adaptations by Ralph Bakshi and Peter Jackson. Tolkien’s handling of gender and women has long been a topic of debate, and Alex further asked, have filmmakers captured all of Galadriel’s qualities as a beautiful, perilous, powerful queen? Compare for yourself; first, Bakshi’s animated 1978 version:
and then Peter Jackson’s 2001 Fellowship of the Ring:
Fan Studies in the Classroom
I’ve had an opportunity to write about the kind of work I ask my students to do in this course. My essay “Adaptation as Analysis: Creative Work in an English Classroom” is forthcoming in the book Fan Studies in the Classroom, edited by Katherine Howell, to be published by the University of Iowa Press. In this essay I discuss the theory behind my ENGL 4475 assignments, the practical details of how they’re done, and why I think the assignments encourage intertextual engagement, creativity, and textual analyses. I’ll post more when the book is published. In the meantime, some of my former students’ assignments can be seen on the ENGL 4475: Studies in Medievalism – Tolkien & Myth-making course page.
Selected Bibliography
This is not meant to be a complete bibliography by any means, but I thought that a few readers might like to sample some of the sources, especially those dealing with fandom and adaptation, that my students have read as part of their research. I’ve culled one or two sources from each essay in case anyone wants to look further into some of the topics my students have written about.
Abrahamson, M.B. “J.R.R. Tolkien, Fanfiction, and the Freedom of the Reader.” Mythlore, vol. 32, no. 1, 2013, pp. 53- 72.
Allington, Daniel. “‘How Come Most People Don’t See It?’: Slashing The Lord of the Rings.” Social Semiotics, vol. 17, no. 1, Mar. 2007, pp. 43–62.
Amendt-Raduege, Amy. “Dream Visions in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien Studies, vol. 3, 2006, pp. 45-55.
Barker, Martin. “Envisaging ‘Visualisation’: Some challenges from the international Lord of the Rings audience project.” Film-Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 3, 2006, pp. 1-25.
Battis, Jes. “Gazing upon Sauron: Hobbits, Elves, and the Queering of the Postcolonial optic.” Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 50, 2004, pp. 908-26.
Clark, George. “J.R.R. Tolkien and the True Hero.” J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-Earth, Greenwood Press, 2000, pp. 39–52.
Cohen, Cynthia M. “The Unique Representation of Trees in The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien Studies, vol. 6, 2009, pp. 91-125.
Croft, Janet Brennan and Leslie Donovan, editors. Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J.R.R. Tolkien. Mythopoeic Press, 2015.
Enright, Nancy. “Tolkien’s Females and the Defining of Power.” Renascence, vol. 59, Issue 2, 2007, 93-108.
Ewalt, David M. Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons and Dragons and the People Who Play It. Scribner, 2013.
Gygax, Gary. “The Influence of J.R.R. Tolkien on the D&D and AD&D Games.” Dragon, vol. 95. March 1985. pp. 12-13.
Hammond, Wayne G. and Christina Scull. J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator. HarperCollins, 2004.
Haydock, Nickolas. The Imaginary Middle Ages: Movie Medievalism. McFarland, 2008.
Hellekson, Karen and Kristina Busse, editors. Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New Essays. McFarland, 2006.
Hutcheon, L. with S. O’Flynn. A Theory of Adaptation, 2nd ed, Routledge, London and New York.
Pugh, Sheenagh. The Democratic Genre: Fan Fiction in a Literary Context. Bridgend, Seren, 2005.
Rahman, Osmud, Liu Wing-Sun, and Brittany Hei-Man Cheung. “’Cosplay’: Imaginative Self and Performing Identity.” Fashion Theory-The Journal Of Dress Body & Culture, vol. 16, no. 3, Sep 2012, pp. 317-342.
Rateliff, John. “Tolkien Moot 2008 MerpCon IV John D. Rateliff solo speech History of the Hobbit author.” YouTube, 28 Jun 2012.
Reid, Robin Anne. “Thrusts in the Dark: Slashers’ Queer Practices.” Extrapolation, vol. 50, no. 3, 2009, pp. 463–483.
_________. “Tree and flower, leaf and grass: The Grammar of Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings.” Fantasy Fiction into Film. Edited by Stratyner, Leslie and James R. Keller. McFarland, 2007.
Russell, Gary. The Lord of the Rings: Art of the Fellowship of the Ring. HarperCollins, 2002.
Shank, Nathan. “Productive Violence and Poststructural Play in the Dungeons and Dragons Narrative.” Journal of Popular Culture, vol 48, no.1, 2015.
These calls for papers in fan studies have recently come my way.
The first is for a special issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research, The editors, Kristine Larsen and Robin Reid, have put out a call for proposals “for fan studies scholarship on any aspect of fan production, creation, or activities relating to J. R. R. Tolkien’s Legendarium and/or Peter Jackson’s live-action film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.” Read more in the Call for Papers: Tolkien Jackson fan studies [pdf].
The other call is for a special issue of the Journal of Fandom Studies on disability, pedagogy, and identity in fan studies classrooms. The guest editor, Katherine Howell, summarizes the aims of this special issue: “to investigate the intersection of disability studies and fan studies. We welcome all explorations of this intersection, but are especially excited about discussions of how the pedagogy we employ, as well as the texts we teach and identities we embody, impact our students and our teaching.” For more details, see the Call for Papers: Disability Pedagogy and Identity. [pdf]
The Tolkien in Vermont conference will take place this coming weekend. This is a small, friendly conference that brings together every year a group of faculty, independent scholars, and students. This year’s theme is Tolkien and Popular Culture.
If you look at the program below, you’ll see a couple of pretty long titles! This is all in the spirit of fun — Kris Larsen has been devising longer and longer titles every year, and when the keynote speaker Robin Reid saw Kristine’s title, she decided to go one better with her own lengthy title. In reaction, I’ve decided to stick to one-word titles!
April 8-9, 2016
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont
Lafayette L207
—Yvette Kisor (Ramapo College) “Queer Tolkien: State of the Field”
—Anna Smol (Mount Saint Vincent University) “Sister-sons” read the abstract here [pdf]
—Chris Vaccaro (University of Vermont) “Saruman’s Sexual Otherness”
Session 2: 10:00 – 11:45. Undergraduate Voices
—Christopher Kelm (U. of Vermont) “Magic and Sorcery: Good and Evil in Tolkien’s Middle-earth”
—Kit Loomis (U. of Vermont) “Not Dead, Legally: Necromancy, the Vyne Ring Curse, and Oath Limitations”
—Liam McAuliffe (U. of Vermont) “Lost in the Lens Flare: Tolkien’s Many Shades of Evil”
—Ryan Quinn (U. of Vermont) “Iarwen Ben-Adar: The Ancient Evil of Arda”
Lunch break 11:45-1:00
Session 3: 1:00-2:30
Keynote: Robin Reid (Texas A&M University – Commerce)
Tolkien and popular culture: Being the Chronicle of Quests from Fandom to Academia and Back Again as the Island of Anglophone Literary Studies in the United States underwent Transformations During the 1970s to 2000s of the Fourth Age of the World Due to Progressive Movements of the Twentieth Century Challenging Oppressive Hierarchies Relating to Gender, Race, and Sexual Identification (Though not so much Class because “America” and Its Weird Obsession with Bootstraps) as Cultural Studies Swept like a Wave Over the Ivory Towers (Keep in Mind It’s a Simile not an Allegory). Plus Tattoos.
Session 4: 2:30 – 4:00
—Kristine Larsen (University of Connecticut) “Kind People!!!: The Adventures of Svetlana Snape Down the Hobbit Hole; Being a (Semi) Serious and Scholarly Dissertation on The Thread ™ That Ate the Tolkien Society Facebook Page (And Judged it to Strangely Taste Like Bacon); In Which the Author Endeavors to Answer Two Great Primordial Questions, Namely (1) What Do Palindromes, Trebuchets, Quantum Physics and Hello Kitty Have to Do With the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (Clearly a Rhetorical Question Given That the Obvious Answer is – Very Little), and (2) What Exactly is a Pant of Thong Ale? (The Answer to Which Promises to Shed Great Light on the Gestalt of the Tolkien Fandom)”
—Andrew Peterson (Independent Scholar) “Hobbit Forming: How the Animated Versions of The Hobbit and The Return of the King by Rankin / Bass introduced Middle-earth to a Generation of Wanderers”
—James Williamson (University of Vermont) “Tolkien and Popular Publishing: the Creation of the Fantasy Genre”
Session 5: 4:00 – 5:30
—Gerry Blair (Independent Scholar) “Tolkien Fandom and Pop Culture: The Polite and the Vulgar”
—Leonard Neidorf (Harvard University) “Creation from Literary Criticism in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur”
Looking over the schedule of Tolkien Studies sessions at the Popular Culture Association conference, held annually in the US, certainly makes me wish I could be there this year. The conference will be held in Seattle, Washington, March 22 – 25, with all of the Tolkien sessions on the 24th and 25th. Robin Reid has once again put together a healthy program of eight Tolkien panels.
Of course, everyone will have different interests that attract them, but for me, one of the highlights of the conference would be presentations by Martin Barker and others about the World Hobbit Project. There’s also the Editors’ Roundtable discussing the “nuts ‘n bolts of Tolkien studies” which will include well-known book and journal editors Leslie Donovan, Janice Bogstad, Brad Eden, Janet Croft, and Martin Barker — a great opportunity for researchers to hear about the state of Tolkien scholarship and any new publishing developments. As usual, the PCA sessions will offer a broad range of papers, from historical and interdisciplinary approaches to pedagogy to reception studies — including a fascinating paper topic on fans’ participation in Chinese translations of books and films.
I list the session titles below. If you want to know more, you can read presenters’ names and their abstracts here.
March 24. Session 3038. Tolkien Studies I. Reception: The World Hobbit Project
March 24. Session 3138. Tolkien Studies II. Pedagogy: Teaching Tolkien’s Middle-earth in the 21st Century. (Roundtable)
March 24. Session 3238. Tolkien Studies III. Reception: Fans, Translations, and Connections
March 24. Session 3338. Tolkien Studies IV. Adaptation: Film Studies
March 24. Session 3438. Tolkien Studies V. Historical Approaches
March 25. Session 4138. Tolkien Studies VI. Scholarship: Editors’ Roundtable
March 25. Session 4238. Tolkien Studies VII. The Silmarillion
March 25. Session 4338. Tolkien Studies VIII. Interdisciplinary Approaches
I understand that a Meet ‘n Greet will be held on one of the evenings as well. To connect with people going to the conference or for more news about the PCA Tolkien Studies group, you can join the Facebook group: search for “Tolkien Studies at Popular Culture / American Culture Association.”
After Robin Reid organized the first successful round of Tolkien Studies sessions two years ago at the Popular Culture Association conference in Chicago, Tolkien Studies has become a regular part of the PCA/ACA annual conference. In 2016, the conference will be held in Seattle, from March 21-25. Paper proposals can be submitted from July 1st to October 1st.
The Tolkien in Vermont conference will take place this coming weekend. This is a small, friendly conference that brings together every year a group of faculty, independent scholars, and students. This year’s theme is Tolkien and Popular Culture.
