Anna Smol: A Single Leaf

Category: Tolkien

  • New symphony by Johan de Meij to premiere at 2018 Tolkien Conference

    Mark you calendars! November 1 – 4, 2018 is the date for a large, international Tolkien conference to be held at Valparaiso University in Indiana. Organizer Brad Eden has commissioned a new composition to be premiered at this conference by Johan de Meij, composer of Symphony #1 (Lord of the Rings), which he conducted during…

  • Kalamazoo: Tolkien Symposium and ICMS Conference

    The program for the  International Congress on Medieval Studies  is now online, and there are numerous sessions for those interested in Tolkien and medievalism.  I’ve copied these from the preview program; of course, you should read the final program to double check the accuracy of this list. The Congress has been cutting back the number…

  • CFP: Romances in Middle-earth

    This call for papers comes from Chris Vaccaro, one of the organizers of the annual Tolkien at UVM Conference in Burlington, Vermont. 14th Annual Tolkien at University of Vermont Conference Saturday April 8th, 8:30am-5:30 p.m. Theme: Romances in Middle-earth Organizers of the Tolkien at UVM Conference are now accepting abstracts for the 2017 conference until…

  • New! Tolkien Symposium in Kalamazoo

    Something new is coming to Kalamazoo, the site of the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies, which usually includes a number of sessions related to Tolkien. Every year the Congress organizers have been whittling down the sessions sponsored by the Tolkien at Kalamazoo group (and others) so that what was once a conference with around…

  • 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 about  childhood in  “Laws and Customs of the Eldar,” The Children of…

  • “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…

  • 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…

  • Talks on Tolkien II: Irina Metzler on Tolkien & Disability Studies

    Continuing in this summer series of Talks on Tolkien II, in which I’d like to highlight pre-recorded talks on new books or on different disciplinary approaches to studying Tolkien, I turn to Irina Metzler’s presentation at the 2016 Tolkien Seminar in Leeds. Dr. Metzler outlines some of the basic concepts in the growing academic field…

  • Talks on Tolkien II: Kristine Larsen on the Inklings & Science

    In this summer series of Talks on Tolkien I’d like to highlight new/forthcoming books or different disciplinary approaches to the study of Tolkien — Interdisciplinary Tolkien, as I like to think of it. Who better to exemplify the interdisciplinary study of Tolkien than Kristine Larsen, known to many as “The Tolkien Astronomer.”  Dr. Larsen is…

  • Talks on Tolkien II: summer series. Flieger on Kullervo

    In the winter months of 2015, I posted a series, Talks on Tolkien, which consisted of presentations by Tolkien scholars that had been previously recorded and made available on the internet. As I was watching a live stream this morning from the New York Tolkien Conference Facebook page, I was reminded of how much I…