Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth is the first systematic examination of how Tolkien understood racial issues, how race manifests in his oeuvre, and how race in Middle-earth, his imaginary realm, has been understood, criticized, and appropriated by others. This book presents an analysis of Tolkien’s works for conceptions of race, both racist and anti-racist. It begins by demonstrating that Tolkien was a racialist, in that his mythology is established on the basis of different races with different characteristics, and then poses the key question “Was Tolkien racist?” Robert Stuart engages the discourse and research associated with the ways in which racism and anti-racism relate Tolkien to his fascist and imperialist contemporaries and to twenty-first-century neo-Nazis and White Supremacists—including White Supremacy, genocide, blood-and-soil philology, anti-Semitism, and aristocratic racism. Addressing a major gap in the field of Tolkien studies, Stuart focuses on race, racisms and the Tolkien legendarium.

Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth is the first systematic examination of how Tolkien understood racial issues, how race manifests in his oeuvre, and how race in Middle-earth, his imaginary realm, has been understood, criticized, and appropriated by others. This book presents an analysis of Tolkien’s works for conceptions of race, both racist and anti-racist. It begins by demonstrating that Tolkien was a racialist, in that his mythology is established on the basis of different races with different characteristics, and then poses the key question “Was Tolkien racist?” Robert Stuart engages the discourse and research associated with the ways in which racism and anti-racism relate Tolkien to his fascist and imperialist contemporaries and to twenty-first-century neo-Nazis and White Supremacists—including White Supremacy, genocide, blood-and-soil philology, anti-Semitism, and aristocratic racism. Addressing a major gap in the field of Tolkien studies, Stuart focuses on race, racisms and the Tolkien legendarium.

In such classic works as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien depicts a vast, complex world-system. Tolkien's Middle-earth comes to life with intensely detailed historical, geographical, and multicultural content, which is presented through different poetic forms that combine elements of epic, romance, myth, history, and the modern novel. This book analyzes Tolkien's project, paying attention to narrative form and its relation to social contexts, while also exploring his broader philosophical conception of history and the role of individual and collective subjects within it. Tolkien's published and posthumous writings, the film adaptations, and recent scholarship are all examined to provide an enlarged and refined critical perspective of these major works. Drawing upon Marxist literary theory and criticism, Robert T. Tally Jr. calls into question traditional views of race, class, morality, escapism, and fantasy more generally. Through close readings mixed with theoretical speculation, Representing Middle-earth allows readers see Tolkien's world, as well as our own, in a new light.

This book is a critical introduction to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, but it also advances an argument about the novel in the context of Tolkien’s larger literary and philosophical project. Notwithstanding its canonical place in the fantasy genre, The Hobbit is ultimately a historical novel. It does not refer directly to any “real” historical events, but it both enacts and conceptualizes history in a way that makes it real. Drawing on Marxist literary criticism and narrative theory, this book examines the form and content of Tolkien’s work, demonstrating how the heroic romance is simultaneously employed and subverted by Tolkien in his tale of an unlikely hero, “quite a little fellow in a wide world,” who nonetheless makes history. First-time readers of Tolkien, as well as established scholars and fans, will enjoy this engaging and accessible study of The Hobbit.

The Lord of the Rings and other works of J.R.R. Tolkien have had a far-reaching impact on culture in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In print and on film, Tolkien’s works seem to be incredible epics, but religious aspects are less obvious. Yet Tolkien himself stated in his letters that the chief conflicts of his epic works were “about God, and His sole right to divine Honour,” and whether Sauron can wrest and destroy all that is good in Middle-earth. It is from this that readers awaken to the theological truths that imbue Tolkien’s works. In Theology and Tolkien: Constructive Theology, an international group of scholars consider how Tolkien’s works (and Jackson’s interpretations) can help us build better theologies for use in our world today. From essays on the music of creation in the Ainulindalë, to angels, demons, and Balrogs, to Tolkien’s theology of God, providence, evil, and love, to the eschatology of the Final Chord of the Great Music, this book invites the reader to journey through Middle-earth as the contributors engage the theology of Tolkien’s works and its impact on the world.

Ancestral North: Spirituality and Cultural Imagination in Nordic Ritual Folk Music offers a detailed exploration of Nordic ritual folk music, a music scene focused on the revival of ancient folkways and archaic music that has found remarkable popularity around the globe. Once the domain of Viking reenactors and neopagan practitioners, the niche sonic and visual aesthetics of this music have found widespread visibility through a new generation of popular films, television series, and video games. The authors argue that many of these musical and media products connect with longstanding cultural attitudes about the Nordic region that conceive of it as wild, exotic, and dangerous, while also being a place of honor, community, and virtue. As such, the Nordic region and its music often becomes a vessel for reactionary escapes from all manner of modern discontentment. However, the authors also posit that spending time re-creating the music of an imaginary past offers participants the possibility for engagement and re-enchantment in the multicultural present.

A detailed work of reference and scholarship, this one volume Encyclopedia includes discussions of all the fundamental issues in Tolkien scholarship written by the leading scholars in the field. Coverage not only presents the most recent scholarship on J.R.R. Tolkien, but also introduces and explores the author and scholar's life and work within their historical and cultural contexts. Tolkien's fiction and his sources of influence are examined along with his artistic and academic achievements - including his translations of medieval texts - teaching posts, linguistic works, and the languages he created. The 550 alphabetically arranged entries fall within the following categories of topics: adaptations art and illustrations characters in Tolkien's work critical history and scholarship influence of Tolkien languages biography literary sources literature creatures and peoples of Middle-earth objects in Tolkien's work places in Tolkien's work reception of Tolkien medieval scholars scholarship by Tolkien medieval literature stylistic elements themes in Tolkien's works theological/ philosophical concepts and philosophers Tolkien's contemporary history and culture works of literature

This exciting collection of essays explores the role of the Other in Tolkien’s fiction, his life, and the pertinent criticism. It critically examines issues of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, language, and identity in The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and lesser-known works by Tolkien. The chapters consider characters such as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, Saruman, Éowyn, and the Orcs as well as discussions of how language and identity function in the source texts. The analysis of Tolkien’s work is set against an examination of his life, personal writing, and beliefs. Each essay takes as its central position the idea that how Tolkien responds to that which is different, to that which is “Other,” serves as a register of his ethics and moral philosophy. In the aggregate, they provide evidence of Tolkien’s acceptance of alterity.

Popular Culture, Social Media, and the Politics of Identity advances a novel methodological approach – pop culture as political object – to capture the centrality of popular culture as an object of a broad range of political contests and debates that constitute pop culture artefacts by generating and informing specific meanings and understandings of them. It is no longer novel to claim that popular culture matters to world politics. The literature on Popular Culture and World Politics (PCWP) has demonstrated the cultural basis of political action and meaning-making. However, this book argues that in doing so, the PCWP literature has focused primarily on the traditionally narrow range of issues, actors, and things that mainstream International Relations regards as part of world politics. While PCWP challenges restrictive disciplinary understandings of the sites of legitimate inquiry where one can purposefully gain knowledge about world politics, comparatively little has been done to challenge constricted understandings of what world politics is, who it involves, and where it takes place. Methodological approaches in the literature largely treat popular culture and politics as separate and therefore focus on understanding how popular culture relates to and intersects with a relatively circumscribed notion of world politics. Focusing on the everyday politics of how audiences perceive and contest popular cultural artefacts, this book demonstrates that pop culture does not merely intersect with or reflect discrete political processes; it is also directly situated as an object of politics. The author analyses current debates over identity politics across a range of contemporary pop cultural artefacts, including films and video games. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations, Political Science, and Cultural and Media Studies.

J.R.R. Tolkien is an author beloved by many, but people forget the hostile reception of his work from several literary critics, who despised (and some who continue to despise) him and his readers. Other intellectuals and critics have a more positive opinion of his work, but some read aspects of his books or his beliefs to fit their own agendas. Over the decades, scholars have claimed that Tolkien represents a myriad of (sometimes contradictory) political positions. Whether these scholars act out of disdain for Tolkien or from a simple misread of his works, the outcome is a muddled distortion of who Tolkien really was. This book peels back the discourse in an attempt to reveal the true nature of an author who so often defies categorization. Using all possible nuance, chapters explore the villains of Lord of the Rings, its female heroines and its moral compass, as well as its definitions of heroism and failure. This book hopes to provide a uniquely accurate and objective assessment of one of the most misunderstood writers of our time.