Professor Rachel Fulton Brown takes you on a journey through the creation of JRR Tolkien’s legendarium, from its origins in Tolkien’s conversations with C.S. Lewis about the power of myth to its realization in the stories of the Silmarillion. Extended version of the course that she teaches at the University of Chicago.
Episode guide: https://fencingbearatprayer.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-forge-of-tolkien.html
Syllabus and course blog: http://tolkienmedievalandmodern.blogspot.com/
Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago, where she teaches courses on the history of Christianity, medieval European religious, cultural, and intellectual history, and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. She blogs as Fencing Bear at Prayer, and she lectures on Logos, Tolkien, and medieval history at UATV. The Dragon Common Room is her online classroom for training poets in the arts of the Christian imagination. She and co-creators KJ Crilly, Kilts Khalfan, and Mel Wiggin host the Mosaic Ark on her UATV Logos and History channel.
Website: https://www.dragoncommonroom.com
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Would you be delighted or horrified to learn that your favorite passage or character or scene in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings could be traced to a modern novel you had never heard of? In this episode, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown reviews Holly Ordway’s Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages (Word on Fire, 2021) to test the flavor of Tolkien’s story-soup. We read from fairy tales (The Yellow Fairy Book), historical romance (John Inglesant), science fiction (Out of the Silent Planet), and adventure stories (She) to test our ability to study Tolkien’s story-tower without knocking it down. Spoiler alert! Your favorite characters may not be who you thought!