Anna Smol: A Single Leaf

Category: Talks on Tolkien

  • Talks on Tolkien: Janet Brennan Croft talks about Tolkien’s views on war

    This week’s “Talk on Tolkien” video comes from Oklahoma State University, where Janet Brennan Croft gave a presentation last November about Tolkien’s life and how his war experiences are reflected in his fiction. Croft is the author of War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien, which was published in 2004 and won the Mythopoeic Scholarship…

  • Talks on Tolkien: Reflecting on Ruins with Michael Drout

    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…

  • Talks on Tolkien: Tom Shippey & the love of trees

    Was Tolkien a “tree-hugger”? That’s a loaded term, but Tolkien readers know that he was concerned about our natural environment and that, yes, he loved trees. The above picture shows Tolkien in the Botanic Garden in Oxford in 1973 with one of his favorite trees, a black pine (Pinus nigra). Sadly, that tree suffered damage…

  • New winter series: Talks on Tolkien

    In my corner of the world, cold winds are lashing up rainstorms and snowfalls for the start of the new year: good days to stay cozy at home, to read, think, and write. To accompany any reading or re-reading of Tolkien in this winter season, I thought that it would be fun to highlight every…