Having a nearly three-year-old means that I’m always attuned to what’s new on CBeebies and, naturally, there’s a lot of bespoke Christmas entertainment this time of the year, including the ever-popular Christmas panto. Last year it was Peter Pan, the…
Two tiny Tolkienian parallels in Susan Cooper’s reflections
As I have written in previous entry, I am currently working on a monograph on Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy for the Palgrave Macmillan Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature series. I have, therefore, been reading and re-reading primary and…
Oxonmoot 2015 and forthcoming Oxford event
Well, the autumn term is nearly upon me, but I did manage to escape to Oxford a couple of weeks ago to take part in Oxonmoot, Tolkien Society’s annual gathering that combines a conference, art exhibition, performances, etc. Oxonmoot has been…
Two books, two conferences, and other news
I am on annual leave at last (hooray!) and it’s time for another long-overdue update. It’s been a very busy few months, mainly taken up by working on two books (!) and being involved in a number of events. First…
A little Elvish love story in The Lord of the Rings
Stuck in trains for hours yesterday, I was revisiting favourite passages from The Lord of the Rings. It’s almost a cliche to say that every re-reading rewards you with new details of Tolkien’s invented world that you hadn’t quite noticed…
Tolkien, Fantasy and Medievalism at IMC Leeds 2015
During the last few years I have been attending the Tolkien sessions at Kalamazoo semi-regularly (once every two years, on average). The International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, hosted by Western Michigan University, has been running for over 50 years, and the…
Tolkien and the Welsh language (and other news)
I had hoped to post more often on this blog, but this term has been unusually busy. There have been a lot of great opportunities and many exciting projects are in the pipeline, but time has flown and here we…
Mythgard classes, Tolkien’s Beowulf, JTR, Tolkien Companion and Kalamazoo
It’s been a while since my last update: I am back to lecturing full-time now, and I really hit the ground running this term! Among other modules, I taught Literary Transformations (Year 2), Gothic and Science Fiction (Year 3) and…
Science Fiction Festival, new Mythgard Course and “things Celtic”
It’s been a busy autumn, with my first public lecture after having a baby, new publications in the pipeline and new, exciting academic ventures. On 18-19 October I took part in Literature Wales’ Space, Time, Machine and Monster festival at…
A much delayed update: Salem Press’ The Fantastic, (re) reading The Hobbit and Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur
It’s been a while since I have had a chance to update the News section (I am on maternity leave, with all the joys and tribulations that this encompasses!) so some most of the announcements here are a few months/weeks…