Category Archives: Medieval

Tolkien conference season 2016

31 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Medieval, Medievalisms, Tolkien

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Here are some Tolkien conferences coming up in the spring and summer — prime conference season! I can’t claim to list every event that’s going on, so if you’d like to add something to the list, please let me know in the comments section. If you want to know about Tolkien-related events around the world, not necessarily just conferences, I’d suggest the public Facebook group International Tolkien Fellowship List of Events. Also, Troels Forchammer’s monthly Tolkien Transactions usually catches more items than I’m aware of. But here are the conferences that I do know about:

Popular Culture Association (PCA)

Popular Culture Association logo

Seattle, Washington
March 22 -25, 2016

The preliminary program, organized by Robin Reid, can be viewed here. The speakers include Martin Barker presenting on the World Hobbit Project; an academic editors’ roundtable discussion with Leslie Donovan, Janet Croft, Brad Eden, Janice Bogstad, and Martin Barker; and numerous other papers on adaptation, translation, reception, and more. The nice thing about the online PCA program is that you can dig down into each session and read the abstracts of all the papers. There are eight sessions in the Tolkien Studies area, another successful year for this new subject area at the PCA national conference.

 

13th Annual Tolkien in Vermont conference

Tolkien in Vermont conference

Burlington, Vermont
April 8 – 9, 2016

This year’s theme is “Tolkien and Popular Culture,” with keynote speaker Robin Reid. A program will be available on the Tolkien in Vermont website. This small conference, organized by Chris Vaccaro, is always a friendly mix of faculty, students, and independent scholars.

 

Tolkien’s Philosophy of Language

13th Seminar of the Deutsche Tolkien Gesellschaft (DTF)
The Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Walking Tree Publishers
May 6 – 8, 2016

A link to more conference information can be found here.

 

Tolkien at Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo campus swan pond

International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo Michigan
May 12 – 15, 2016

I’ve already posted a schedule of sessions on Tolkien and medievalism as they appeared in the preliminary program. There are seven sessions dealing with Tolkien, mostly organized by Brad Eden and a few others. This year, one of the plenary speakers will be Jane Chance talking about “How we read J.R.R. Tolkien reading Grendel’s mother.” The ICMS is a huge conference, usually drawing around 3,000 participants in sessions on all aspects of the Middle Ages and medievalism.

 

Tolkien Among Scholars: 7th Unquendor Lustrum Conference 2016

Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society and the Dutch Tolkien Society Unquendor.
June 18, 2016

The keynote speakers for this international conference will be Thomas M. Honegger and Paul Smith. The program will be posted on the conference website.

 

Tolkien Society Seminar 2016

Tolkien Society

Leeds, UK
July 3, 2016

The theme of this year’s seminar is “Life, Death, and Immortality,” and if you’re interested in giving a paper, there’s still time: March 25 is the deadline for submissions. You can find the Call for Papers and more information here. The Seminar takes place the day before the International Medieval Congress begins at Leeds University, where you’ll find more Tolkien sessions (see below).

 

International Medieval Congress

medieval

Leeds University
July 4 – 7, 2016

Dimitra Fimi has organized two sessions on Tolkien for this conference. Like Kalamazoo, the Leeds conference draws thousands of medievalists every year. The program will be posted on the conference website.

 

New York Tolkien Conference

cropped-logo-art.jpg

Baruch College, New York City
July 16, 2016

This conference, organized by Jessica Burke and Anthony Burdge, is back again after last year’s successful inaugural event. The special theme for this year’s conference is “The Inklings and Science,” with guests of honour Kristine Larsen and Jared Lobdell. The call for papers has not yet been posted, but keep checking the conference site for information as it becomes available.

 

Mythcon 47

Mythopoeic Society

Mythopoeic Society
San Antonio, Texas
August 5 – 8, 2016

The special theme for this year’s conference is “Faces of Mythology: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern.” The Scholar Guest of Honour is Andrew Lazo and the Author Guest of Honour, Midori Snyder. You can find a call for papers here; the deadline is May 1st to send proposals to Jason Fisher, the papers co-ordinator for this conference.

 

That’s my list for now. Clearly, the field of Tolkien Studies is thriving. I wish I had unlimited funds to travel to every one of these meetings!

 

 

Tolkien & medievalism at K’zoo 2016: sneak peek

23 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by in Conferences, Medieval, Medievalisms, Old English, Tolkien

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The preview of the conference program for the 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies has now been posted. Although there may still be changes made to the program before the final version is published in February, I’m always eager to see what sessions have been accepted and to plan how I’m going to spend my days in Kalamazoo this year.

The conference runs from May 12 – 15 at Western Michigan University. Keep in mind that the following are excerpts from a preliminary program; for the final version and most accurate information, check out the published schedule when it comes online here.

I’ve highlighted sessions on Tolkien and on medievalism. Even with this narrowing down, you can see that it’s impossible to attend every panel that might be of interest.

Sessions on Tolkien

The conference always features two plenary addresses.  This year, one of those lectures will be delivered by Jane Chance, speaking on Tolkien.

Friday 8:30 a.m. Plenary Lecture:
How We Read J. R. R. Tolkien Reading Grendel’s Mother.  
Jane Chance (Rice Univ.)

Other sessions focusing on Tolkien:

Thursday 10:00 a.m.
Fathering, Fostering, Translating, and Creating in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien
Session 11 Fetzer 1040
Sponsor: Organizer: History Dept., Texas A&M Univ.–Commerce Judy Ann Ford, Texas A&M Univ.–Commerce; Presider: Anne Reaves, Marian Univ.

  • Medieval Fostering in the First and Third Ages of Middle-earth: Elrond as Fóstri and Fóstr-son. Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State Univ.
  • A Stylistic Analysis of Fatherhood and Fostering in The Silmarillion. Robin Anne Reid, Texas A&M Univ.–Commerce
  • Tolkien’s Beowulf: A Translation of Scholar and Poet. Yvette Kisor, Ramapo College
  • Imagined: Tolkien in the Mind of God. Skyler King, College of the Desert

Thursday 1:30 p.m.
Tolkien and Beowulf
Session 58; Fetzer 1040
Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo
. Organizer: Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ. Presider: Andrew Higgins, Independent Scholar

  • “A Tight Fitt”: Strategies of Condensation in The Lay of Beowulf. John R. Holmes, Franciscan Univ. of Steubenville
  • Tolkien’s “Freawaru and Ingeld”: A Love Story? Christopher T. Vaccaro, Univ. of Vermont
  • The Christian Singer in Tolkien’s Beowulf. Michael D. Miller, Aquinas College
  • Tolkien’s Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary as a Teaching Text. James L. Baugher, East Tennessee State Univ.

Thursday 3:30 p.m.
In Honor of Verlyn Flieger (A Roundtable)
Session 107; Fetzer 1040
Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo. Organizer: Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ. Presider: John D. Rateliff, Independent Scholar

  • Tolkien’s “On Fairy-stories” as a theory of literature. Curtis Gruenler, Hope College
  • The Well and the Book: Flieger and Tolkien on “the Past in the Past”. Deborah Sabo, Univ. of Arkansas–Fayetteville/Arkansas Archeological Survey
  • So Many Wonders: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight according to Tolkien and Flieger. Amy Amendt-Raduege, Whatcom Community College
  • “Linguistic Ghosts”: Anglo-Saxon Poetry as Tolkien’s Tether between Past and Present. Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State Univ.
  • An Elf by Any Other Name: Naming, Language, and Loss in Tolkien’s Legendarium. Benjamin S. W. Barootes, McGill Univ.

Friday 10:00 a.m.
Tolkien and Invented Languages
Session 219; Bernhard 209
Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo. Organizer & Presider: Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ.

  • From Goldogrin to Sindarin, or, How Ilkorin Supplanted the “Sweet Tongue of the Gnomes”. Eileen Marie Moore, Cleveland State Univ.
  • Early Explorers and Practicioners of a Shared “Secret Vice”. Andrew Higgins, Independent Scholar
  • “Art Words”: Tolkien’s “Secret Vice” Manuscripts and Radical Linguistic Experimentation. Dimitra Fimi, Cardiff Metropolitan Univ.
  • Tolkien’s Concept of “Native Language” and the English and Welsh Papers at the Bodleian Library.  Yoko Hemmi, Keio Univ.

Saturday 10:00 a.m.
Asterisk Tolkien: Filling Medieval Lacunae
Session 345; Fetzer 1060
Sponsor: Dept. of Religious Studies and Philosophy, The Hill School. Organizer and Presider: John Wm. Houghton, Hill School

  • The “Lost” Language of the Hobbits. Deidre Dawson, Independent Scholar
  • “To Recall Forgotten Gods from Their Twilight”: Tolkien, Machen, and Lovecraft. John D. Rateliff, Independent Scholar
  • “Backdreaming” Beowulf’s Scyld Scefing Legend. Anna Smol, Mount Saint Vincent Univ.
  • Bred in Mockery. Michael Wodzak, Viterbo Univ.

Saturday noon
Tolkien at Kalamazoo business meeting. Bernhard 212.

Saturday 2:00 – 5:00 p.m. Off-campus session sponsored by Tolkien at Kalamazoo:
Tolkien Unbound
Kalamazoo College, music recital hall, 2-5 p.m.  (Come to the business meeting to arrange transportation)

  • Readers’ theater performance of Tolkien’s Kalevala
  • Eileen Moore, Maidens of Middle-earth 6.

 

Other sessions on medievalism

Thursday 10 a.m.
Looking Back at the Middle Ages. Presider: Audrey Becker, Marygrove College. Session 35.

  • Discovering and Inventing Early Medieval Lincolnshire, 1710–1755. Dustin M. Frazier Wood, Bethany College
  • A Corruptly Nostalgic Crusade: Horace Walpole’s Medievalism of the Crusades in The Castle of Otranto. Rachel Landers, Univ. of Alabama–Birmingham
  • “Better than Anything Ancient”: Artifce, Authenticity, and William Morris’s Created Scandinavian Past. Mimi Ensley, Univ. of Notre Dame

Thursday 3:30 p.m.
Digitally Teaching the Middle Ages: Case Studies (A Poster Session)
Sponsor: Medieval Electronic Multimedia Organization (MEMO). Organizer: Carol L. Robinson, Kent State Univ.–Trumbull
. Presider:Pamela Clements, Siena College. Session 138.

  • Teaching with King’s Quest Part I
. Kevin A. Moberly, Old Dominion Univ.
  • Teaching with King’s Quest Part II
. Jessica Dambruch, Old Dominion Univ.
  • Game Theories and Teaching Medieval Literature. John McLaughlin, East Stroudsburg Univ.
  • Teaching with Lord of the Rings Online. Carol L. Robinson
  • Role-Playing Games and the Multimedia Wife of Bath Project. Daniel-Raymond Nadon, Kent State Univ.

Friday 1:30 p.m.
Medievalism and Labor (A Roundtable)
Sponsor: International Society for the Study of Medievalism. Organizer and Presider: Amy S. Kaufman, Middle Tennessee State Univ. Session 276.

  • Adjunct Serfs in a Feudal Academy?. Michael R. Evans, Delta College
  • Life in Another Castle: Medieval Studies and Game Design. Serina Patterson, Univ. of British Columbia
  • King’s Scab: Economic Chivalry and Immaterial Labor in the Age of the Sharing Economy. Brent Addison Moberly, Indiana Univ.–Bloomington, and Kevin A. Moberly, Old Dominion Univ.
  • Should I Put This on My C.V.? Medievalism and Academic Labor in Graduate School. Usha Vishnuvajjala, Indiana Univ.–Bloomington
  • Contractions and Expulsions of the Retro-medieval toward the Female Body. Carol L. Robinson, Kent State Univ.–Trumbull

Friday 3:30 p.m.
Medievalism and Anti-Semitism
Sponsor: International Society for the Study of Medievalism. Organizer: Amy S. Kaufman, Middle Tennessee State Univ. Presider:Martin B. Shichtman, Eastern Michigan Univ. Session 328.

  • Medieval Heritage and Nazi Rituals: Historical Pageants in the Upper Palatinate. Richard Utz, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • William Dudley Pelley: An American Nazi in King Arthur’s Court. Kevin J. Harty, La Salle Univ.
  • Medievalism in Contemporary American Anti-Semitism. Paul B. Sturtevant, Smithsonian Institution

Friday 3:30 p.m.
Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers: Gender and Sex in Medieval Film and Television 
Sponsor: Royal Studies Journal. Organizer and Presider: Janice North, Univ of Arkansas-Fayetteville. Session 313.

  • Melusine, Magic, and Maternal Blood in The White Queen. Misty Urban, Muscatine Community College
  • “Men go to battle, women wage war”: Gender Politics in The White Queen (2013). Kavita Mudan Finn, Independent Scholar
  • A New Isabel for the Twenty-First Century. Emily S. Beck, College of Charleston
  • Queering Isabella: The “She-Wolf of France” in Film and Television. Michael R. Evans, Delta College

Friday 3:30 p.m.
Medieval Studies and Medievalism, Past and Present
Organizer: Christina M. Heckman, Augusta Univ. Presider: Christina Heckman. Session 295. [updated listing]

  • Gower among the Protestants: A Medieval Poet, Post-reform. F. Yeager, Univ. of West Florida
  • Church History and the Sound of Words in N. S. F. Grundtvig’s Brunanburh and Phoenix Ballads. Robert E. Bjork, Arizona State Univ.

Saturday 1:30 p.m.
A Session of Ice and Fire: Medievalism in the Game of Thrones Franchise
Sponsor: Tales after Tolkien Society Organizer: Helen Young, La Trobe Univ. Presider: Geoffrey B. Elliott, Oklahoma State Univ.–Stillwell. Session 417.

  • Forging and Reforging Valyrian Steel: The Role of Arthurian Sword Motifs in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Alexandra Garner, Bowling Green State Univ.
  • Peaceweaving in Westeros. Carol Parrish Jamison, Armstrong State Univ.
  • Dragons, Alliances, Power, and Gold: Disruptor Beam’s Game of Thrones Ascent. Shiloh R. Carroll, Tennessee State Univ.

Saturday 1:30 p.m.
Childhood/Innocence in Victorian Medievalism
Organizer: Daniel Najork, Arizona State Univ.; Eileen A. Joy, BABEL Working Group Presider: Daniel Najork. Session 386.

  • Alice, Dream Visions, and Victorian Childhood. William Racicot, Independent Scholar
  • Victorian Medievalism and the Construction of the Innocent Male Body in the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Cheryl Jaworski, Univ. of California–Santa Barbara
  • Medieval Fantasy and the Neo-Victorian Child in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia Heather L. N. Hess, Univ. of Tennessee–Knoxville

Saturday 3:30 p.m.
In Fashions Reminiscent: The Overlapping Objects, Discourses, and Ideas of the Sixties and the Middle Ages
Sponsor: punctum books. Organizers & presiders: Geoffrey W. Gust, Stockton Univ.; John F. O’Hara, Stockton Univ.; Eileen A. Joy, BABEL Working Group
Geoffrey W. Gust, John F. O’Hara, and Eileen A. Joy. Session 465.

  • Chaucer in the Stoned Age. Candace Barrington, Central Connecticut State Univ.
  • Trees Again: Time Travel with Plants. Lara Farina, West Virginia Univ.
  • Medievalism and the End(s) of Empire in 1960s Science Fiction: Frank Herbert’s Dune and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Scott Wells, California State Univ.–Los Angeles
  • Sounds of Silence: Popular Existentialism and Medieval Autofiction. Christopher Jensen, Florida State Univ.

Sunday 10:30 a.m.
Fanfiction in Medieval Studies
Organizer: Anna Wilson, Univ. of Toronto Presider: Anna Wilson. Session 524.

  • Strange Attraction to Sacred Places: Reading Fannish Fantasies in a Copy of Mandevilles’s Travels. Alison Harper, Univ. of Rochester
  • Choose Your Own Arthur: Canon and Agency in Choice of Games’ Pendragon. Rebecca Slitt, Choice of Games, LLC
  • Code-Switching Media: Vernacular Medievalisms and the Queer Lives of Mulan. Jonathan Hsy, George Washington Univ.
  • Charlemagne Fanfiction and Collective Identity in Fourteenth-Century England. Elizabeth Williamsen, Minnesota State Univ.–Mankato

 

Let me know if I’ve missed any sessions on Tolkien or medievalism.

 

Tolkien’s nod to the medieval homage ritual in LotR

27 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in Conferences, Medieval, Medievalisms, Publications, Research, Tolkien

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As I indicated in a previous entry, I wanted to post some of the images that I used when delivering my Tolkien 2005 conference paper. That paper (without the images) is included in the proceedings now on sale by the Tolkien Society.

Back in 2005, my presentation, “Male Friendship in The Lord of the Rings: Medievalism, The First World War, and Contemporary Rewritings,” discussed the Frodo and Sam relationship in both medieval and modern contexts. I wanted to show that a tradition of male friendship, especially in war, stretches far back in time.

For example, just as Roland has his Oliver in the Song of Roland (here pictured in a 14th-century manuscript):

Roland and Oliver

and Beowulf has his Wiglaf (by J.H.F. Bacon, c. 1910):

Death of Beowulf

so too, Frodo has his Sam:

Sam Frodo Mount Doom LotR Framecap Lib

While I wanted to show how a tradition of male friendship can be traced back to the early medieval period (and I could have gone beyond that, of course, but I only had 20 minutes for my talk!), I also tried to place the Frodo-Sam relationship in a modern and contemporary context. I looked at the nature of World War One friendships, then at how Peter Jackson had portrayed Frodo and Sam in his films, and finally at how subsequent fanfic writers have generally represented the two.

But as I was thinking about the medievalized elements in Frodo and Sam’s friendship, I was struck by one moment in Return of the King when the two of them are near the end of their climb up Mount Doom. Consider this passage:

 ‘Help me, Sam! Help me, Sam! Hold my hand! I can’t stop it.’ Sam took his master’s hands and laid them together, palm to palm, and kissed them; and then he held them gently between his own.

At this point, Frodo and Sam are very close to the end of their climb. As the Eye moves to gaze at the Captains of the West, Frodo falls to the ground as if he’s “stricken mortally.” Sam is kneeling beside him. Of course, it’s completely natural for Frodo to ask Sam to hold his hand to keep it from reaching for the Ring around his neck. And it’s quite in keeping with Sam’s previous attempts to comfort his Master by holding his hands, as he does several times before this in various situations.

But the specific actions that are described here are also reminiscent of the medieval ceremony in which a vassal pays homage to a lord. Typically, the vassal places himself in a lower position than his lord by kneeling before him. He offers his hands in a prayer gesture, palm to palm, to his lord, who places his own hands over them as a sign that he will offer protection to his vassal.

medieval homage ceremony

From a 12th-century manuscript. Act of homage

On Mount Doom, Frodo is in the lower position on the ground and Sam is kneeling above him. Frodo offers his hands as a vassal would do, and Sam takes them between his own, as if he were the superior in the relationship. I find this reversal very telling. Sam has always directed his loyalty to his “Master,” acting as his servant. Now, Frodo is acknowledging Sam’s leadership role by putting himself into Sam’s hands, both literally and symbolically. He is becoming Sam’s man, as if he were a vassal pledging himself to a lord.

This reversal only acknowledges what has already happened in the story by this point. Sam has increasingly taken the lead in their journey and made decisions for both of them in his effort to protect Frodo.

The ceremony of homage between vassal and lord existed in many European countries and over centuries in the medieval period, so it should not be surprising that variations occurred. In my 2005 article, I interpreted the scene in the light of one of these versions, in which a vassal kisses his lord’s hands in the ceremony. Because it’s Sam who kisses the clasped pair of hands, I had read that as a sign of  “a reciprocal exchange in which Frodo acknowledges the need for Sam’s leadership and protection, and Sam acknowledges his willingness to be both vassal and lord” (324). Since writing this, though, I’ve read that in some instances the lord did kiss the vassal’s hands and in others, the kiss did not occur until an oath of fealty was sworn after the homage ritual. In any case, some historians do point out that the ceremony of vassalage created a reciprocal relationship between the two parties, with equal demands on both sides.

Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth 1969

Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth 1969.

However we interpret the details, I can’t help but see the basic homage ritual (hands clasped together and enfolded in another person’s hands) as reflected in this moment between Frodo and Sam. In that light, the scene looks forward to the time when Sam will become the Master of Bag End; in fact, to me it makes that conclusion seem inevitable.

Bibliography

The original article in the 2005 proceedings did not have a bibliography attached. For the sake of completion, you can look at the Works Cited list here [pdf].

Images:

Roland and Oliver. Illustration from the Song of Roland. 14th century. Wikimedia Commons Image; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARoland_Kleine.jpg

Frodo and Sam. Peter Jackson, Return of the King. Image from The Lord of the Rings Image Library.

From a 12th-century manuscript, Liber Feudorum Major. Wikimedia Commons Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermengol_II,_Count_of_Urgell#/media/File:LiberErmengol_Arnau.jpg

Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth 1969 investiture ceremony. https://www.royal.gov.uk/ImagesandBroadcasts/Galleries/Royalresidences/TheQueeninWales.aspx

 

Eala! Unlock your word hoards!

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Medieval, Medievalisms, Old English, Old Norse, Publications, Tolkien

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I’ve just heard about a new project, the journal Eala, which will publish compositions in Old English and other medieval Germanic languages. The founding editor and editor-in-chief of Word Hoard Press, Richard Littauer, plans to publish the journal online and include original compositions in Old English, Old Norse, and the like, as well as translations.

I can’t help thinking that Tolkien would be pleased to see this kind of venture, as he was a proponent of writing in the alliterative verse styles of Old English and Old Norse, either in the original languages or in modern English. As readers of his recently published Beowulf know, Tolkien was adept at composing in Old English – see his prose story “Sellic Spell” in that volume as an example. Tom Shippey has written about the difficulties of counting just how many poems and fragments Tolkien wrote in alliterative meter in both modern and Old English; in his essay “Tolkien as a Writer of Alliterative Poetry” in the book Tolkien’s Poetry, Shippey counts 22 compositions in modern English alliterative meter plus “The Homecoming”; another nine complete poems and five fragments in Old English, and that’s not including modern English poems imitating Old Norse alliterative style. In other words, Tolkien wrote a lot of alliterative verse.

Although Tolkien did write in other verse forms besides alliterative meter, he believed that alliterative verse was a natural form for English speakers and advocated its use – but who was listening? Lately, though, I’ve seen signs of interest in bringing medieval poetry more in contact with modern writers. Jane Chance, for example, is hosting an “Original Medievalistic Poetry Reading and Open Mic” at next year’s International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I’ll have to check it out next May in the hopes of hearing some alliterative compositions. And here’s another sign of interest from a couple of years ago: Modern Poets on Viking Poetry: A Cultural Translation Project resulted in the publication of poems in modern English, which can be downloaded here.

These last two are projects that highlight the influence of medieval poetry on modern writers, but to write “correct” alliterative verse in a medieval language like Old English is another matter entirely. I’m looking forward to seeing what shows up in Eala.

Kalamazoo past and future

28 Sunday Jun 2015

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I’ve been away for some time now on conference and research trips — more posts to come on those in the next few days. My last post over a month ago listed Tolkien sessions in Kalamazoo at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, which has  come and gone. Happily, I realize there’s no need this year for me to summarize the Tolkien sessions or to compile accounts of various other presentations, as I’ve done in previous years. Instead, you can read the excellent Tolkien at Kalamazoo Round-Up by Dr. Andrew Higgins on his blog, Dr. Wotan’s Musings.

In addition, #Kzoo2015 hit the blogosphere from all directions, and if you want a taste of the many different topics that were presented and discussed, take a look at Jonathan Hsy’s #Kzoo2015 Blogroll, a feast of information that includes “links to blog postings and transcripts of individual paper presentations … archives of tweets, public notes from sessions, Prezi and YouTube presentations … and an alliterative poem.”

The organizers of ICMS waste no time in deciding on which sessions will be allowed for the following year. You can already take a look at the Sneak Preview of sessions for 2016. Sessions specifically dealing with Tolkien are the following:

The Tolkien at Kalamazoo group, organized by Brad Eden, has been allowed to sponsor three sessions.

  • Tolkien and Beowulf
  • Tolkien and Invented Languages
  • A roundtable in honor of Verlyn Flieger

The History Department at Texas A&M University – Commerce is sponsoring one session, organized by Judy Ann Ford:

  • Fathers, Sons, and Fosterage in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien

The Department of Religious Studies & Philosophy at The Hill School is sponsoring one session, organized by John Wm. Houghton:

  • Asterisk Tolkien: Filling Medieval Lacunae

Even with these three sponsors, the number of Tolkien sessions has decreased in the last two years — not from lack of interest (the Tolkien at Kalamazoo sessions are always extremely well attended) but as a result of a deliberate decision by the ICMS organizers, who have limited most sponsoring groups (although not all, which is puzzling in itself) to 3 or 4 sessions. For many years, the Tolkien at Kalamazoo group sponsored up to eight sessions per year, but that kind of thriving scholarly growth is being pruned back by the Congress organizers. Too bad, but of course, it’s their Congress, and they must have their reasons, though I think some sponsors would like to see more transparency in the decision-making.

K’zoo 2015 sessions on Tolkien and medievalisms

10 Sunday May 2015

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It’s that time of year again — planning for the International Congress on Medieval Studies, with its 500-plus sessions, at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.  Impossible to attend every session of interest, but in having to make decisions about which presentations to go to, I like to pull out a few possibilities. Here I have all the sessions that deal with Tolkien and then some that cover the broad topic of medievalisms. Of course, you should check the official program for the authoritative schedule and to double check times and rooms.

Tolkien sessions first of all:

Thursday 10 a.m. 
Session 33, Bernhard 204
Tolkien as Translator and Translated
Sponsor: History Dept., Texas A&M Univ.–Commerce
Organizer and presider: Judy Ann Ford, Texas A&M Univ.–Commerce

–Tolkien’s Beowulf and the “Correcting Style.” Dean Easton, Independent Scholar
—Sir Orfeo, the Classical Sources, and the Story of Beren and Lúthien. Sandra Hartl, Otto-Friedrich-Univ. Bamberg
–Translator and Language Change: On J. R. R. Tolkien’s Translation of Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight.  Maria Volkonskaya, Higher School of Economics, National Research Univ.

Thursday 1:30 p.m. 
Session 49, Valley II, Eicher 202
Christopher Tolkien as Medieval Scholar (A Roundtable)
Organizer: Douglas A. Anderson, Independent Scholar
Presider: John Wm. Houghton, Hill School
A roundtable discussion with Douglas A. Anderson; John D. Rateliff, Independent
Scholar; Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ.; and Brent Landon Johnson, Signum Univ.

Thursday 3:30 p.m. 
Session 127, Schneider 2355
Tolkien and Victorian Medievalism
Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo
Organizer: Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ.
Presider: Amy Amendt-Raduege, Whatcom Community College

–J. R. R. Tolkien on the Origin of Stories: The Pardoner’s Tale Lectures and Nineteenth-Century Folklore Scholarship
. Sharin Schroeder, National Taipei Univ. of Technology
–Maps and Landscape in William Morris and J. R. R. Tolkien. 
Amanda Giebfried, St. Louis Univ.
–Tolkien’s Victorian Fairy-Story Beowulf .
Jane Chance, Rice Univ.

Thursday 7 p.m. 
Session 155, Fetzer 1045
Tolkien’s Beowulf (A Readers’ Theater Performance) and Maidens of Middle-earth
V, “Turin’s Women”
Organizer: Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ.
Presider: Thom Foy, Univ. of Michigan-Dearborn
–Tolkien’s Beowulf
Thom Foy; Andrew Higgins, Cardiff Metropolitan Univ.; Jewell Morrow,
Independent Scholar; Deidre Dawson, Independent Scholar; Mark Lachniet,
Independent Scholar; Richard West, Independent Scholar; Jane Beal,
SanctuaryPoet.net; Brad Eden
–Maidens of Middle-earth V: “Turin’s Women”
Eileen Marie Moore, Cleveland State Univ

Saturday noon.  Business Meeting, Tolkien at Kalamazoo. Bernhard 158

Sunday 8:30 a.m.   
Session 525. Schneider 1120
Tolkien as Linguist and Medievalist
Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo
Organizer and presider: Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ.

–The First Red Book: An Exploration of Tolkien’s Exeter College Essay Book
Andrew Higgins, Cardiff Metropolitan Univ.
–Inter-Elvish Miscommunication and the Fall of Gondolin. Eileen Marie Moore, Cleveland State Univ.
–A Scholar of the Old School: Tolkien’s Editing of Medieval Manuscripts. John D. Rateliff, Independent Scholar
–Immram Roverandom. Kris Swank, Pima Community College

Sunday 10:30 a.m. 
Session 549. Fetzer 1055
Tolkien’s Beowulf
Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo
Organizer: Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ.
Presider: Christopher Vaccaro, Univ. of Vermont

–“That does not attract me”: Lang./Lit. and the Structure of Tolkien’s Beowulf Commentary. John R. Holmes, Franciscan Univ. of Steubenville
–Can a Geat Be a Knight? Tolkien’s Use of Chivalric Terminology in His Translation of Beowulf. Brian McFadden, Texas Tech Univ.
–The Weird Word Wyrd
. Amy Amendt-Raduege, Whatcom Community College
—Beowulf Reimagined: Coming of Age in Tolkien’s Sellic spell. Amber Dunai, Texas A&M Univ.

Sessions or papers on medievalism:

Plenary lecture: Saturday 8:30 a.m.
The Notion of the Middle Ages: Our Middle Ages, Ourselves
Richard Utz
East Ballroom, Bernhard Cente

Thursday 10 a.m. Session 22
Looking Back at the Middle Ages
Presider: Geoffrey B. Elliott, Oklahoma State Univ.–Stillwater
–Abraham Wheelock and West Saxon Genealogy: Old English Rhythmical Prose in 1643/44. Patrick V. Day, Florida State Univ.
–Martin Sarmiento: A Medievalist at the Court of the Spanish Bourbon Kings. Maria Willstedt, Hamilton College
–Ghost of the Oak Gall: Scholarly Inheritance, Antiquarian Time, and Manuscript Cataloguing in the Medievalist Fiction of M. R. James. Patrick J. Murphy, Miami Univ.

Thursday 1:30 Session 95
Modernizing the Medieval for a New Generation: Medievalism in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Organizer: Alexandra Garner, Bowling Green State Univ. Presider: Alexandra Garner
–“Minstrels get about and so do students”: The Role of Emotional Attachment and Historical Accuracy in the Impact of Young Adult Fiction. Esther Bernstein, Graduate Center, CUNY
–What in the World Is Wattpad?: Examining the Platform of Merlin’s Gold, The Camelot Code, and Other Offerings for Young Readers. Christina Francis, Bloomsburg Univ. of Pennsylvania
–Otherworld Boys and Modern Girls: The Medieval Irish Fairy Lover in Young Adult Fiction. Joanne Findon, Trent Univ.
–“Metaphorical Feudalisms”: Land, Obligations, and Power in the Young Adult Fiction of Tamora Pierce and Patricia A. McKillip. Amelia A. Rutledge, George Mason Univ.

Friday 10:00 a.m.  Session 214
False Friends: “Translation,” “Adaptation,” or “Creative Interpretation” of the Medieval Text?
Sponsor: Organizer: Presider:
eth press
 Chris Piuma, Univ. of Toronto, and David Hadbawnik, Univ. at Buffalo David Hadbawnik
–The Nonce Taxonomies of Translation and Mary Jo Bang’s Inferno. Lisa Ampleman, Univ. of Cincinnati
–The Well of Anachronism: Experimental Translation, Medievalism, and Gender in Contemporary Poetics. Shannon Maguire, Wilfrid Laurier Univ.
–Return to Sender: Re-Flemishing Chaucer’s Flemish Tales in Verhalen voor Canterbury. Jonathan Hsy, George Washington Univ.
–“The harlot is talkative and wandering”: Conduct Literature, Medbh McGuckian, and the Postcolonial Subject. Katharine W. Jager, Univ. of Houston-Downtown

Friday 10:00 a.m. Session 216
Quantum Medievalisms (A Roundtable)
Sponsor: Organizer: Presider:
postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies
Eileen Joy, BABEL Working Group Angela R. Bennett Segler, New York Univ.
–Schroedinger’s Woman. Tara Mendola, New York Univ.
–The Piers Plowman Uncertainty Principle. James Eric Ensley, North Carolina State Univ.
–Bedetimematter. Christopher Roman, Kent State Univ.–Tuscarawas
–Quantum Memory and Medieval Poetics of Forgetting. Jenny Boyar, Univ. of Rochester
–Quantum Queerness. Karma Lochrie, Indiana Univ.–Bloomington

Friday 10:00 a.m.
Session 221
The Neomedieval Image
Sponsor: Organizer: Presider:
Medieval Electronic Multimedia Organization (MEMO) Carol L. Robinson, Kent State Univ.–Trumbull
Pamela Clements, Siena College
–A Digital Caliphate of Their Own: The Paradox of New Media and Neomedievalism in the New Islamic State. Kevin A. Moberly, Old Dominion Univ., and Brent Addison Moberly, Indiana Univ.–Bloomington
–Gesturing the Neomedieval Image and “Medievalizing” the Gesture. Carol L. Robinson
–Remix Culture and the Neomedieval Videogame. Michael Sarabia, Univ. of Iowa
–(Digital) Geography and the Making of Myth. Lesley A. Coote, Univ. of Hull

Friday 1:30 p.m. Session 259
Critical Mediations (A Roundtable)
Sponsor: Organizer: Presider:
International Society for the Study of Medievalism Amy S. Kaufman, Middle Tennessee State Univ. Amy S. Kaufman
–Le Roman de Jubal Sackett: Louis L’Amour reads Chrétien de Troyes. Cory James Rushton, St. Francis Xavier Univ.
–“What if your future was the past?”: Temporality, Gender and the “Isms” of
Outlander. Leah Haught, Georgia Institute of Technology
–Knighthood and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: Identity and Posthuman Medievalism in Sons of Anarchy. Valerie B. Johnson, Georgia Institute of Technology
–Studying Medieval Disabilities in the Post-Modern World. Wendy J. Turner, Georgia Regents Univ.
–Gothic Aesthetics. Dina Khapaeva, Georgia Institute of Technology

Friday 3:30
. Session 314
Political Medievalisms
Sponsor: Organizer: Presider:
International Society for the Study of Medievalism Amy S. Kaufman, Middle Tennessee State Univ. Amy S. Kaufman
–“D’Aliénor d’Aquitaine au bûcher de Montségur”: Medievalism and Identity in the Right-Wing Populism of the Ligue du Midi. Michael R. Evans, Central Michigan Univ.
–Blaming William of Ockham: The Far-Right’s Critique of Medieval Nominalism
Daniel Wollenberg, Univ. of Tampa
–Crusades, Templars, and Cyberjihad: Political Medievalisms in Social Media
Andrew B. R. Elliott, Univ. of Lincoln

Saturday 10:00 a.m. Session 370
Metaphysical Medievalisms
Sponsor: International Society for the Study of Medievalism Organizer: Amy S. Kaufman, Middle Tennessee State Univ. Presider: Carol L. Robinson, Kent State Univ.–Trumbull
–Medieval Elements in Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” William Racicot, Independent Scholar
–The Grail, American Fascism, and William Dudley Pelley. Kevin J. Harty, La Salle Univ.
–“Miracle of the Meat”: The Relationship of Medieval Eucharistic Miracles to Eucharistic Miracles in Contemporary Native American Novels. Rebecca Fullan, Graduate Center, CUNY
–The Post-Medieval Reception of Heretical Movements: From Arnold of Brescia to Fra Dolcino. Riccardo Facchini, Univ. Europea di Roma

Saturday 1:30  
Session 442. Bernhard 158
From Frodo to Fidelma: Medievalisms in Popular Genres (A Roundtable)
Sponsor: Tales after Tolkien Society
Organizer: Helen Young, Univ. of Sydney
Presider: Geoffrey B. Elliott, Oklahoma State Univ.–Stillwater
–Black in Sherwood: Race and Ethnicity in Robin Hood Media. Kris Swank, Pima Community College
–Hedgehogs and Tomb Raiders in King Arthur’s Court: The Influence of
Malory in Adventure Games. Serina Patterson, Univ. of British Columbia
–The Zombie Apocalypse in the Classroom and Medieval Plague. John Marino, Maryville Univ.
–Crimes and Conspiracies in Town and Court: Embodying Late Medieval Life. Candace Robb, Independent Scholar
–Found Footage: The Popular Credibility of the Grimms’ Tales. Thomas R. Leek, Univ. of Wisconsin–Stevens Point
–Arthuriana for Children: Narrative Integrity and the Medieval in Gerald
Morris’s Squires Tales. Alexandra Garner, Bowling Green State Univ.
–Medievalism and the Popular Romance Novel. Geneva Diamond, Albany State Univ.

Saturday 1:30
Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: Sources, Influences, Revisions, Scholarship
Sponsor: Organizer: Presider:C. S. Lewis Society, Purdue Univ.; Center for the Study of C. S. Lewis and Friends, Taylor Univ. Joe Ricke, Taylor Univ.

–Ransom as Pilgrim: A Reflection of Dante’s Commedia in Out of the Silent Planet Marsha Daigle-Williamson, Spring Arbor Univ.
–Walking beneath Medieval Skies: C. S. Lewis’s Challenge to Modern Minds. Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State Univ.
–The Medieval Sources and Inspiration for C. S. Lewis’s Understanding of Self and Society. Hannah Oliver Depp, Politics and Prose Bookstore/American Univ.
–Bridging the Gap between Medieval and Modern Science: The Middle Way of C. S. Lewis. Dennis Fisher, Independent Scholar

Saturday 3:30
.Session 462
Women of the Medieval World/Medieval Women of the World
Sponsor: Organizer: Presider:
Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS) Seokyung Han, Binghamton Univ.
Sally Livingston, Ohio Wesleyan Univ.
–Non-Uppity Women Poets of al-Andalus in Their Apartment
Doaa Omran, Univ. of New Mexico
–On the Re-establishment of Gender Roles in Medieval Korea
Seokyung Han
–Same-Sex Intimacies in an Ethiopian Hagiography: The Queer Relations of the Ethiopian Orthodox Female Saint Walatta Petros. Wendy Laura Belcher, Princeton Univ.
–Medieval Feminisms and Antipodean Medievalisms. Elie Crookes, Univ. of Wollongong

Saturday 3:30. Session 496
Teaching Medieval in a General Education Context (A Roundtable)
Organizer: Alison Locke Perchuk, California State Univ.–Channel Islands Presider: Amy Caldwell, California State Univ.–Channel Islands
–Art History. Peter Scott Brown, Univ. of North Florida
–Medieval English Literature. Andrea Harbin, SUNY–Cortland
–Medievalisms and Popular Culture. A. Keith Kelly, Georgia Gwinnett College
–Astronomy. Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State Univ.
–Vernacular Languages. Marilyn Lawrence, New York Univ.
–Religion. Heidi Marx-Wolf, Univ. of Manitoba
–History. Susan Taylor, Univ. of Houston–Victoria

Saturday 3:30  
Session 501. Bernhard 158
Martin and More: Genre Medievalisms
Sponsor: Tales after Tolkien Society
Organizer: Helen Young, Univ. of Sydney
Presider: Stephanie Amsel, Southern Methodist Univ.
–Medievalism, Feminism, and “Realism” in Game of Thrones. Kavita Mudan Finn, Southern New Hampshire Univ.
–Save the Cheerleader, Save the World: Yesterday’s Heroism Today. Valerie Dawn Hampton, Western Michigan Univ./Univ. of Florida
–Detectives in the Middle Ages? The (Exceptionally) Popular Genre of Medievalist Crime Fiction. Anne McKendry, Univ. of Melbourne
–White Hats for White Plumes: The Western as Arthurian Romance
Reimagined. Geoffrey B. Elliott, Oklahoma State Univ.–Stillwater

And here is another chance to attend the astrolabe session by Tolkien scholar / astronomer Kristine Larsen:

Friday 9:30 p.m.
A Hands-On Introduction to Astrolabes (A Workshop)
Organizer: Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State Univ.A hands-on workshop on the basic use of a medieval astrolabe, with examples taken from Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe. Each of the first forty attendees will take home a free cardboard astrolabe.

Tolkien at UVM conference April 10-12

07 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Conferences, Medieval, Medievalisms, Old English, Tolkien

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The 12th Annual Tolkien at University of Vermont conference is just days away.  The conference is free and open to the public. It starts with a Friday night Fireside reading at which participants can get up and read their favorite passages, and continues on Saturday with a day of conference presentations. On Sunday afternoon, the University Tolkien Club organizes a “Springle-Ring Shire Festival” with all kinds of fun activities.

This year’s conference theme is Medieval Verse Narratives, and the keynote speaker is Dr. Michael D.C. Drout, who will be speaking about “Scholarship as Art, Art as Scholarship: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf.”

The other presentations are:

Gerry Blair (Independent Scholar). “J.R.R. Tolkien, Performance Artist and Modern Medievalist.”

Jamie Williamson (University of Vermont). “Verses and Prose: Medieval Narrative, Nineteenth Century Medievalism, and Tolkien.”

Andrew Liptak (Independent Scholar/Norwich University). “Modern Fantasy’s Roots in Medieval Verse.”

Kristine Larsen (Central Connecticut State University). “Guinevere, Grimhild, and the Corrigan: Witches and Bitches in Tolkien’s Medieval Narrative Verse, or, Good Girls Don’t Use Magic (Except if You’re Galadriel, but Elf Magic is Diff erent, and Who Ever Said Galadriel was a Good Girl?)”

Andrew C. Peterson (Harvard). “A Brief Exploration of Tolkien’s Alliterative Verse and Echoes of The Fall of Arthur Heard in Middle-earth”

Christopher Vaccaro (University of Vermont). “’Dyrne langað’: Secret Longing in Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings.”

Anna Smol (Mount Saint Vincent University). “Poetic Time-Travel in The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son”

Cheryl Hunter (Independent Scholar). “Beowulf and Thorin as Ancestral Heroes: Their Choices, and the Dragons They Face.”

and Undergraduate Voices

For more information and to view past programs, you can go to the conference website.

Talks on Tolkien: Dimitra Fimi on Folklore and “Sellic Spell”

02 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Medieval, Medievalisms, Old English, Publications, Talks on Tolkien, Tolkien

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My weekly “Talks on Tolkien” series continues with a video presentation by Dimitra Fimi. Dr. Fimi was part of the Beowulf Launch Party organized by the Tolkien Society and Middle-earth Network last spring, when Tolkien’s Beowulf and other related texts were first published. Dr. Fimi’s talk is a little different from my previous video selections in that she is not reading a paper to a live audience at a conference. The Launch Party was an online event featuring several commentators throughout the day who were giving their first impressions of the Beowulf publication. If you’re interested, the other recordings from that day are also worth a look.

One reason I chose this talk was to highlight the fact that the publication of Tolkien’s Beowulf includes more than just his translation of and commentary on the poem — intriguing as that is to Old English and Tolkien scholars. Dr. Fimi’s presentation focuses on one of the texts included with Tolkien’s Beowulf translation: a folktale called “Sellic Spell” (which can be translated as “wondrous tale”) that Tolkien wrote in both modern English and in Old English. The other text that’s included in the volume is a poem, or two versions of a poem, titled “The Lay of Beowulf” which is written in rhyming stanzaic form, very different from the original Old English alliterative meter.

The publication of these texts has given us not only Tolkien’s translation of the Old English poem Beowulf (an interesting research topic in its own right), but also adaptations of the Beowulf story in different genres — ripe material for analysis! Further, I believe that Tolkien’s rendition of  “Sellic Spell” in Old English warrants study of his ability to think and write in Old English. In the following video, Fimi outlines another approach to the story through the lens of folklore research.

Dimitra Fimi is the author of Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits, published in 2008, which won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies and was shortlisted for the Folklore Society’s Katharine Briggs Award. She is a Lecturer in English at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Recently, she filmed two short videos for a BBC iWonder guide on Why do the Elves in The Hobbit sound Welsh? You can find out more about her videos and interviews on her website’s Media page, or follow her blog or her Twitter account: @Dr_Dimitra_Fimi.

To read “Sellic Spell” or “The Lay of Beowulf” you’ll have to buy Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. But if you’re interested in the original poem itself, you can listen to a few lines of it on Michael Drout’s Anglo-Saxon Aloud website. The poem exists in a single manuscript called Cotton Vitellius A. XV, held in the British Library. You can find information about the manuscript in the British Library’s Online Gallery, and you can also leaf through the digitised manuscript (go to f.132r to see the beginning of Beowulf).

Adaptations of Beowulf have proliferated since the late nineteenth century in books for children and adults, and more recently as films. Some of you may know the 2005 Beowulf and Grendel movie, or more likely, the 2007 Robert Zemeckis version featuring Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s Mother. I especially enjoy the 1998 animated version made for TV featuring Derek Jacobi and Joseph Fiennes, which you can view below. It’s just one among many examples of Beowulf adaptations — and now we have more of Tolkien’s work that can be examined as part of this rich store of material.

If you have any favorite Beowulf adaptations, or if you want to say something about “Sellic Spell,” let us know in the comments!

Talks on Tolkien: Reflecting on Ruins with Michael Drout

06 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by in Medieval, Medievalisms, Old English, Talks on Tolkien, Tolkien

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In this week’s “Talk on Tolkien” listen to Michael Drout as he constructs a lecture on “How to Read J.R.R. Tolkien” out of personal reminiscences, a discussion of the features of oral tradition, and images of stone and textual ruins.

Professor Drout is best known to Tolkien scholars as one of the founding editors of the journal Tolkien Studies, and the editor of the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment and of Tolkien’s Beowulf and the Critics. You can find out more about his publications and projects on his website MichaelDrout.com, on his blog Wormtalk and Slugspeak, or by following him on twitter: @MikeDrout.

The following lecture was delivered in October 2013 at Carnegie Mellon University. Michael Drout was an undergraduate there, and in his talk he pays tribute to his former medieval literature professor, Peggy Knapp, while recalling some of his experiences as a student. But don’t be fooled into thinking that these are simply personal digressions from the subject of Tolkien; Drout masterfully interlaces the different strands of his talk to build to his concluding reflections on textual ruins and nostalgia in Tolkien’s work.

After listening to this talk, you might end up reflecting on the pastness of the past and the ways in which it is overlaid by the present. This “joyous and heartbreaking” feeling of longing is not only found in Tolkien’s work but also in many Old English poems. I thought it would be interesting to extend Professor Drout’s meditation on ruins by looking at a video adaptation of the Old English poem known as “The Ruin” which layers past and present in unexpected ways:

(You might note that the director, translator, and speaker in this film is Stuart Lee, a professor at Oxford University who is a medievalist and a Tolkien scholar.)

If you are interested in delving further into Professor Drout’s discussion of the features of oral tradition, such as “communicative economy” and “traditional referents,” I would recommend John Miles Foley’s book How to Read an Oral Poem as a great starting point.

As always, any comments are welcome. Does Michael Drout’s view of how to read Tolkien strike a chord with you? Do you see the same qualities in the text as he does? Other thoughts?

Jackson’s Lost Opportunity: The Death of Sister-Sons

16 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by in Fan studies, Medieval, Medievalisms, Old English, Review, Tolkien

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Thorin Fili Kili banner

Thorin, Fili, Kili banner. TheOneRing.net

I enjoy many things about Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films – the material realization of various Middle-earth cultures, the creation of the best movie dragon I’ve ever seen, Martin Freeman’s Bilbo, to name only a few – but of course Jackson is not making the films specifically for me, a medievalist with a love of Tolkien’s work. As such, I had hoped that Jackson would have given us a resonant scene focusing on an uncle and his nephews — Thorin, Fili, and Kili — making their heroic last stand in battle together. There is a long tradition of the special relationship between “sister-sons” and their uncles in medieval literature that Tolkien refers to in The Hobbit. Working out that relationship to its traditional end would have inserted Jackson’s scene more firmly in a body of stories about these deeply embedded emotional relationships that are a part of western Europe’s cultural history.[1]

Now wait a minute, you might be saying to yourself. Jackson [2] clearly indicates a strong relationship between Thorin and his nephews, and their death scenes in The Battle of the Five Armies are somewhat connected and set apart from others. Yes, but not exactly in the traditional way I’m talking about.

In The Hobbit, Tolkien simply reports, “Of the twelve companions of Thorin, ten remained. Fili and Kili had fallen defending him with shield and body, for he was their mother’s elder brother.” (“The Return Journey,” The Hobbit 268).[3] Yes, they defend each other because they’re family, but more specifically because Fili and Kili are Thorin’s “sister-sons” (sweostor sunu in Old English).

Fili, Kili

Fili, Kili. Lisa’s Video Frame Capture Library. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Image 235

Uncle-nephew relationships, and sometimes even more precisely maternal uncle-nephew relationships (therefore, “sister-sons”), are frequently represented as a special bond in medieval literature. In Beowulf, the poet alludes to the story of Sigemund, êam (maternal uncle) to Fitela (line 881), and how they fought together in times of need. In line 115 of the Old English poem “The Battle of Maldon,” Wulfmær, one of the fallen warriors, is identified as the lord’s swuster sunu. Tolkien recognizes the appropriateness of Wulfmær’s place near his uncle in the verse drama “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” which is based on “The Battle of Maldon.”  In this play, two men are searching after the battle for the body of their lord when one of them finds Wulfmær:

This head we know!
Wulfmær it is. I’ll wager aught
not far did he fall from friend and master.

His companion answers:

His sister-son! The songs tell us,
ever near shall be at need nephew to uncle.  (“Homecoming” 127)

Other uncle-nephew relationships can be found in Charlemagne and Roland, Hrothgar and Hrothulf, Arthur and Gawain. The relationship isn’t always positive; in some stories, Mordred is Arthur’s sister-son, which makes his treachery even worse. Théoden and Éomer or Turgon and Maeglin provide some other examples in Tolkien’s work. Verlyn Flieger explains how we can even see the Bilbo-Frodo relationship in this light. [4]

So what does Jackson do with the uncle-nephew bond? In The Battle of the Five Armies, Thorin welcomes Fili and Kili to the kingdom of Erebor, addressing them as his “sister’s sons.” In Jackson’s movies the young dwarves Fili and Kili refer to Thorin as their uncle, and in The Desolation of Smaug Thorin tells Fili that one day he will be king.[5] In The Battle of the Five Armies, when Thorin finally bursts out of the mountain gate to join the battle, the two warriors running closest to him on either side are Fili and Kili. In their last fight, Thorin calls Dwalin, Fili, and Kili to go with him in an attempt to take down Azog. Gandalf comments that Thorin is taking his best fighters with him. In Old English they would be called his heorð-geneatas, his “hearth-companions,” a small group of noble, well-trained fighters who are closest to their lord, and it is reasonable to think that the young and courageous nephews would be among them. Fili and Kili, then, are appropriately represented as sister-sons in most of Jackson’s Hobbit.

But the uncle-nephew bond dissipates in their final scenes. While Tolkien recognizes in “The Homecoming” that “ever near shall be at need nephew to uncle,” in The Battle of the Five Armies the nephews end up nowhere near their uncle in a time of need. Instead, Thorin sends Fili and Kili away to hunt for Azog, and then the two nephews split up in separate searches as well. Fili is killed in the sight of both of his kinsmen (we don’t see him fighting heroically to the end; he’s just skewered and then thrown over a cliff) but both Thorin and Kili are too far away to do anything about that attack. Uncle and nephew cannot stand and defend each other. The killing of Fili enrages Kili, who runs off in a passionate Orc-killing spree, but his end is complicated by the arrival of Tauriel.

Now, I have to make clear that I do not object in principle to the creation of new characters like Tauriel. But her involvement in Kili’s last fight obscures the uncle-nephew bond that defines Thorin and his sister-sons. Instead of Thorin, Fili, and Kili fighting side-by-side until they are cut down, we get a different trio: Kili-Tauriel-Legolas defending each other. Kili’s last look is not to his uncle but to Tauriel; his uncle is too far away to be part of the scene. The special bond of an uncle with his nephews who “had fallen defending him with shield and body,” is nowhere to be seen.

Peter Jackson knows how to film emotional battle scenes, as he demonstrated in The Return of the King: sweeping music, slow motion, the melee of battle, the depiction of personal anguish.

Return of the King battle scenes

from Lisa’s Video Frame Capture Library. Return of the King. Aragorn, Image 1808; Eowyn with Theoden, Image 1811; Eomer with Eowyn, Image 1846

Had Jackson completed the Hobbit story with a heroic last stand of uncle and nephews fighting side-by-side on the battlefield, their tale would have participated in a long tradition of sister-son stories and allowed us to feel the emotional impact of that relationship in a visceral way.

Thorin, Kili

Thorin, Kili. Lisa’s Video Frame Capture Library. The Hobbit: trailers. Image 326.

Too bad the opportunity was lost so close to the end of the movie.

Endnotes

[1] These uncle-nephew relationships are important in other cultures beyond the European, but I am only familiar with the northern European literary uncle-nephew motif. It is likely that the practice of fostering high-born children – having a son educated in his uncle’s home, for example – contributed to the motif in medieval literature.

[2] I use “Jackson” throughout as shorthand. Although he was the director of the Hobbit movies, he was not the only writer. The full writing team consists of Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh, and Guillermo del Toro, who gets a writing credit for his involvement with the project in its earlier stages.

[3] Tolkien inserted this line about Fili and Kili dying in defense of their uncle late in the process of composition. According to John Rateliff: “The idea that the two most likeable of all Bilbo’s companions should also die in the battle…first appears in the continuation of the typescript that eventually (autumn 1936) replaced the Third Phase manuscript” (684, n. 11). Rateliff also points out that Thorin was originally Fili and Kili’s great-uncle, but Tolkien later moved him one generation closer. (See, for example, Rateliff  444 – 445, note 11). In Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings, in the section on “Durin’s Folk,” Thorin appears in the genealogy as Fili and Kili’s uncle (1418).

[4] Verlyn Flieger discusses the Bilbo-Frodo kinship in the light of the uncle-nephew motif in her essay, “Frodo and Aragorn: The Concept of the Hero.” The essay has been reprinted in a couple of places, including Flieger’s collected essays in Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien. Kent State University Press, 2012 and in the 2004 volume, Understanding the Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism, edited by Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs, published by Houghton Mifflin and partly available as a Google e-book.

[5] Rateliff comments on the line of succession in Tolkien’s conception of the Dwarves’ patriarchal line of kings which excludes the maternal nephews (704). In the early Middle Ages, young relatives in the maternal line might succeed a ruler; it is interesting that in this detail Jackson is closer to early medieval practice than the book.

Works Cited

Flieger, Verlyn. “Frodo and Aragorn: The Concept of the Hero.” Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien. Kent State University Press, 2012. 141-58. Print. Also available in Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism. Ed. Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. 122-45. Print and Google e-book.

Jackson, Peter, dir. The Battle of the Five Armies. New Line Cinema, 2014. Film.

____. The Desolation of Smaug.  New Line Cinema, 2013. Film.

Klaeber’s Beowulf. Ed. R.D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles. 4th ed. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2009. Print.

Rateliff, John D.  The History of the Hobbit. 2 Vols. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Print.

“The Battle of Maldon: Hypertext Edition.” Old English Literature: A Hypertext Course Pack. English Faculty, Oxford. 2009. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.

“The Lord of the Rings: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” Lisa’s Video Frame Capture Library. 2 Oct. 2014. Screenshots. 14 Jan. 2015.

“The Lord of the Rings: The Hobbit: Trailers.” Lisa’s Video Frame Capture Library. Jul – Nov 2014. Screenshots. 14 Jan. 2015.

“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” Lisa’s Video Frame Capture Library. n.d. Screenshots. 14 Jan. 2015.

“Thorin, Fili and Kili Banner in Super High-Resolution.” TheOneRing.net. 22 Nov. 2014. JPEG. 14 Jan. 2015.

Tolkien, J.R.R. “Durin’s Folk.” Appendix A.iii. Return of the King, being the third part of The Lord of the Rings. London: HarperCollins, 2007. 1406-19. Print.

_____. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. London: HarperCollins, 1999. Print.

_____.  “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son.” Tree and Leaf, including the poem Mythopoeia. London: HarperCollins, 2001. Print.

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MLA citation of this post:  Smol, Anna. “Jackson’s Lost Opportunity: The Death of Sister-Sons.” A Single Leaf.  16 Jan 2015. Web.  [insert date of access here without brackets].

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What did you think of these final scenes in the film? Any other examples of sister-sons that you want to discuss or add?  Please feel free to comment!