Tolkien 50th Anniversary Seminar Series

The last three talks will be of special interest to medieval graduates working in Old English (or Old Norse): Grace Khuri (Nov. 8) will look at compound personal names starting with Ælf- (‘Elf’) that Tolkien encountered in his set texts as an undergraduate (c. 1913-1915) and how these contributed to building (what Tolkien himself later called) his ‘Elf-centric’ mythology for The Book of Lost Tales (c. 1917-1919) — the earliest version of what would later become The Silmarillion (1977), the epic, mythic-legendary prehistory of Middle-earth. The following week is Dr. Laura Varnam’s lecture on ‘Tolkien and Beowulf’ (Nov. 15), and the last lecture of the term will be given by Dr. Simon Horobin on ‘Tolkien the Philologist’ (Nov. 22).

Although there is an online booking system that now states that all these lectures are full, there have been many no-shows at these seminars and the organizers have said that anyone can come along now (without booking) and there should be room to fit everyone in. For those who cannot make it (due to teaching commitments, lectures, tutorials etc.), the talks will be recorded on a case-by-case basis (depending on the permission of each speaker). If there are any questions about this, contact Dr. Stuart Lee at stuart.lee@ell.ox.ac.uk.