This page lists my most recent scholarly activities for the last seven years, including publications, conference presentations, invited talks and interviews. For a more complete list of my research activities, please see my Research page.
Smol, Anna. “Grendel’s Mother Talks Back: Contemporary Women’s Mythopoeic Rewritings.” Online Midsummer Seminar (OMS), Mythopoeic Society. August 2, 2025.
Keynote: Smol, Anna. “Into the West: Tolkien’s Mythmaking and Dreams of Eärendil.” Tolkien Society Westmoot conference. WW1 Memorial Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, US. May 10, 2025.
Smol, Anna. “Allegory and Story: Poetic Time Travel in Tolkien’s Typological Fictions.” Proceedings of the Tolkien 2019 Conference, edited by Will Sherwood, Luna Press, 2025, pp. 140-47.
Smol, Anna. “Tolkien, ‘The Battle of Maldon,’ and ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth’: Poetic Allusions and the Experience of Time.” Journal of Tolkien Research, vol. 19, issue 3, article 2, 2024. https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol19/iss3/2. Short-listed for the Tolkien Society Best Article Award 2024.
Smol, Anna. “Tolkien the Playwright: Manuscript Drafts and Faërian Dramas in Tolkien’s Homecoming of Beorhtnoth.” Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature, vol. 43, no. 1, article 7, 2024. https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol43/iss1/7/
Keynote: Smol, Anna. “Dreaming the Middle Ages: The Case of Grendel’s Mother.” Atlantic Medieval and Early Modern Group, Mount Saint Vincent University. 4 October 2024.
Conference paper. “Tolkien the Playwright: Manuscript Drafts and Faërian Dramas in Tolkien’s Homecoming of Beorhtnoth.” Mythopoeic Society, 3 August 2024. Online. Recording available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythcon/mc53/schedule/27/
Conference paper: “Eärendil’s Mythopoeic Journeys.” International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds. July 1, 2024.
Conference paper: Tolkien in Vermont Conference (online presentation): “Allusions, Ambivalence, and the Search for an Ending: Tolkien’s Homecoming of Beorhtnoth.” April 13, 2024.
Smol, Anna. “Beowulf and Boyology.” Florilegium, vol. 36, 2019, pp. 147-62. DOI: 10.3138/flor-36.008. U of Toronto Press, 2023.
Smol, Anna. Review of Beowulf as Children’s Literature ed. by Bruce Gilchrist and Britt Mize. Children’s Literature, vol. 51, 2023, p. 182-87. Project Muse, doi.10.1353/chl.2023.a898403.
“Writing for The Conversation on Rings of Power.” Knowledge Mobilization: The Conversation, Mount Saint Vincent University Research Office Spring Training, May 24, 2023. Invited talk.
“Adaptation as Analysis: English Students’ Projects.” Community for Arts-Informed Research and Teaching (CAIRT), Mount Saint Vincent University, April 26, 2023. Invited talk.
Tolkien and Alliterative Verse
Launched in November 2022. An open access, online resource including a Descriptive Bibliography of Tolkien’s Alliterative Verses, Tolkien’s Notes on Alliterative Verse; Online Guides to Alliterative Metre; a blog, Woven Words, and coming soon, a page of Secondary Sources on Tolkien’s alliterative verses.
A collaborative research project assisted by Gavin Foster, Jordan Audas, and MacKenzie Moore
Interviewed for Il Post, 18 Oct. 2022. “Le differenze tra ‘Rings of Power’ e i libri di Tolkien.” https://www.ilpost.it/2022/10/18/rings-of-power-canone-tolkien/.
Interview: Streaming Wars podcast, SaltWire Network, “Is The Rings of Power the One Fantasy To Rule Them All?” 11 Oct. 2022. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/is-the-rings-of-power-the-one-fantasy-to-rule-them-all/id1524803356?i=1000582293815.
“The Rings of Power: Every Adaptation is Re-interpretation so ignore the haters.” The Conversation, 11 Oct. 2022. https://theconversation.com/the-rings-of-power-every-adaptation-is-re-interpretation-so-ignore-the-haters-190481.
Interviewed for CBC Radio, Day 6, “Why Lord of the Rings endures as a pop culture touchstone.” 02 Sept. 2022. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/lord-of-the-rings-cultural-touchstone-1.6568453
Conference paper. “The Lost Roads of Old English Poetry: Dramas of Time Travel in Tolkien’s Works.” International Congress on Medieval Studies, University of Western Michigan, May 2022.
Teaching Tolkien Roundtable. Invited speaker, Popular Culture Association. 15 April 2022.
Conference paper. “Tolkien, Old English, and Identity.” Popular Culture Association Conference, 14 April 2022.
“Tolkien’s Adaptation of the Old English ‘Seafarer.’ ” Invited speaker, Inkling Folk Fellowship, 4 March 2022.
“TEP #38 — Anna Smol.” Tolkien Experience Podcast, 3 Sept. 2021. https://luke-shelton.com/2021/09/03/tep-38-anna-smol/
Conference paper. Tolkien’s Alliterative Styles in The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth.” Leeds International Medieval Congress, Leeds UK. 8 July 2021.
The Future of Tolkien Studies Roundtable, Invited speaker. Popular Culture Association Conference, 4 June 2021.
Smol, Anna and Gavin (R.) Foster. “J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Homecoming’ and Modern Alliterative Metre.” Journal of Tolkien Research, 2021, Vol. 12, iss. 1, article 3. Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol12/iss1/3
Conference paper. “Tolkien the Playwright.” Tolkien Symposium, Tolkien at Kalamazoo group. 8 May 2021. For a slightly edited recording of the talk: https://annasmol.net/2021/05/24/tolkien-symposium-2021-tolkien-the-playwright/
“Bodies in War: Medieval and Modern Tensions in ‘The Homecoming’.” “Something Has Gone Crack”: New Perspectives on J.R.R. Tolkien in the Great War, edited by Annika Röttinger and Janet Brennan Croft, Walking Tree Press, 2019, pp. 263-83.
Review of Binding Them All: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on J.R.R. Tolkien and His Works, edited by Monika Kirner-Ludwig, Stephan Koser and Sebastian Streitberger, Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 2017. In Journal of Tolkien Research, vol. 7, no. 1, 2019. https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol7/iss1/2/.
Conference paper. “Allegory and Story: Poetic Time Travel in Tolkien’s Fiction.” Tolkien 2019 Conference, The Tolkien Society, Birmingham UK, 7 Aug. 2019.
Reina Green, D. Piccitto, and A. Smol. “When Everything Old is New Again: Experiential Learning in the Classroom.” Learning and Teaching Development Workshop Plenary Address, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, NB., 2 Feb. 2019.
“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.
“Tolkien’s Seers and Singers: Tolkien’s Typology of Sub-creators.” A Wilderness of Dragons: Essays in Honor of Verlyn Flieger, edited by John D. Rateliff, The Gabbro Head, 2018, pp. 258-79.
Green, Reina, Diane Piccitto, and Anna Smol. “When Everything Old is New Again: Experiential Learning in the Classroom.” Proceedings of the Atlantic Universities’ Teaching Showcase, vol. 22, 2018. https://ojs.library.dal.ca/auts/article/view/10183.
Reina Green, D. Piccitto, and Anna Smol. “When Everything Old is New Again: Experiential Learning in the Classroom.” Annual Atlantic Universities Teaching Showcase, Dalhousie University, 20 Oct. 2018.
Conference paper. “Tolkien’s Typological Imagination.” International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 2 July 2018.
This is a list of my last seven years of scholarly activities. For a more complete list of my research activities, please see my Research page.
Anna Smol: A Single Leaf 