[Rod Dreher] The Woke J.R.R. Tolkien

The reader who sent this in cites it as an example of O’Sullivan’s First Law: “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.” The Tolkien Society has announced its summer seminar — and hoo boy, is it ever woke!

We are extremely excited to invite you to our upcoming Tolkien Society online seminar on Saturday and Sunday 3rd-4th July! The schedule is now live on the website and can be viewed here.

With sixteen speakers coming to you live in your own home, the day promises to be full of new and fascinating insights into ‘Tolkien and Diversity’.

What is even better is that the event (to be hosted on Zoom) is free to attend. If you would like to attend then please sign up here. The Zoom link and further details will be shared closer to the event only with those who have registered.

The full list of speakers are as follows:

• Cordeliah Logsdon – Gondor in Transition: A Brief Introduction to Transgender Realities in The Lord of the Rings
• Clare Moore – The Problem of Pain: Portraying Physical Disability in the Fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien
• V. Elizabeth King – “The Burnt Hand Teaches Most About Fire”: Applying Traumatic Stress and Ecological Frameworks to Narratives of Displacement and Resettlement Across Cultures in Tolkien’s Middle-earth
• Christopher Vaccaro – Pardoning Saruman?: The Queer in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
• Sultana Raza – Projecting Indian Myths, Culture and History onto Tolkien’s Worlds
• Nicholas Birns – The Lossoth: Indigeneity, Identity, and Power
• Kristine Larsen – The Problematic Perimeters of Elrond Half-elven and Ronald English-Catholic
• Cami Agan – Hearkening to the Other: Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth
• Sara Brown – The Invisible Other: Tolkien’s Dwarf-Women and the ‘Feminine Lack’
• Sonali Chunodkar – Desire of the Ring: An Indian Academic’s Adventures in her Quest for the Perilous Realm
• Robin Reid – Queer Atheists, Agnostics, and Animists, Oh, My!
• Joel Merriner – Hidden Visions: Iconographies of Alterity in Soviet Bloc Illustrations for The Lord of the Rings
• Eric Reinders – Questions of Caste in The Lord of the Rings and its Multiple Chinese Translations
• Dawn Walls-Thumma – Stars Less Strange: An Analysis of Fanfiction and Representation within the Tolkien Fan Community
• Danna Petersen-Deeprose – “Something Mighty Queer”: Destabilizing Cishetero Amatonormativity in the Works of Tolkien
• Martha Celis-Mendoza – Translation as a means of representation and diversity in Tolkien’s scholarship and fandom

What can men do against such reckless hate?