There has been a trend over the past year in which small conferences promote their registration or their call for submissions by claiming that they are seeking to reinvigorate or reanimate a field of scholarship that is on the wane. For instance, one such conference claimed that:
2023 is a significant turning point in Tolkien studies because the generation of scholars that truly knew him is entering retirement. It’s not yet clear what sort of scholarship will fill the void they are leaving.
This claim is odd for several reasons. First, what is meant by the phrase “truly knew him”? If the idea is scholars who had a personal relationship with Tolkien, then it should be noted that none off the scholars who have retired in the past twenty years had a personal relationship with Tolkien. Tom Shippey met Tolkien in 1972 at a dinner party, but they were not friends. If the phrase is meant to suggest that there is a generation of scholars who have offered valuable insights into Tolkien’s work, in other words scholars who ‘get it’ in a different parlance, then how does the conference organizer support the assertion? Why do the scholars that follow this generation fall short?
Another odd thing about this claim is that, if we assume that the creator of this promotional material DID mean to reference Shippey and his generation of scholars, then this call for a conference is about ten to fifteen years too late; for example, Shippey retired in 2008, Jane Chance retired in 2011, and Verlyn Flieger retired in 2012.
Perhaps the most egregious oversight of this claim, however, is that the author of the piece seems unaware of the fact that Tolkien scholarship has thrived, and indeed expanded, over the past decade. Not only does the claim ignore the work of well-established scholars like Dimitra Fimi, Janet Brennan Croft, Kristine Larsen, and a whole host of scholars whose publications overlap those of the previously mentioned group and who are still active participants in the field, it completely ignores the fact that we have more early-career and independent scholars in the field than we have ever had before!
From my vantage point, writers of pieces like this must frame their argument this way for one of two reasons: either they are ignorant about the field at-large, and so have made an honest mistake, or they have decided that the kind of work currently available in Tolkien scholarship “just isn’t real scholarship.” In either case, I would challenge them to read more modern scholarship on Tolkien.
I understand how fans and non-academics who are not engaged in the field can make claims that contradict current scholarship. I do not fault them for this, because I don’t personally believe that one needs to be invested in scholarship to be a Tolkien fan. When one proposes to conduct an academic conference, however, I would hope that the minimum due diligence would be to have a working knowledge of the field. This is how academics typically work.
Another instance of this kind of positioning was Holly Ordway’s book Tolkien’s Modern Reading. Setting aside the quality of the book itself, as there have been numerous reviews written at this point and I would encourage readers to peruse those for a fuller assessment of the text, the promotional material surrounding the book were unnecessarily provoking. The first paragraph of the blurb still posted on the publisher’s page is:
Tolkien’s Modern Reading addresses the claim that Tolkien “read very little modern fiction, and took no serious notice of it.” This claim, made by one of his first biographers, has led to the widely accepted view that Tolkien was dismissive of modern culture, and that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are fundamentally medieval and nostalgic in their inspiration.
This is intentionally misleading in a way that heightens the significance of the book and undermines the work of other scholars. While it is true that early scholarship focused on Tolkien’s medieval sources, this has not been the sole focus of Tolkien scholarship for the past thirty years. I suspect that Ordway herself did not have a hand in writing the blurb, and she would not have been so disingenuous if she had been involved. Usually someone from the publisher ends up writing most of these promotional blurbs.
I must admit that I do not understand the need for event organizers and publishers to position what they are offering as counter-cultural or revolutionary when, in fact, they are not. I have found such a posturing to be particularly employed by events and publications adopting a Christian perspective recently, so to show you my meaning I will use them as a case study.
I went to the Modern Language Association’s International Bibliography and searched for “Tolkien” and “war” occurring in any text field for a work. The results indicated 2,046 results, which would include books, reviews, articles, or dissertations written between 1961 and 2002. It is not an exact science, but it gives us a place to start comparisons. Repeating the search with “Tolkien” and “religion” yields 1,261 results, and searching for “Tolkien” and “race” yields 1,009 results. While “religion” is not as common as “war,” it is more common than many words like “race” or “gender.” These searches are, of course, an imperfect measure, but it does help to demonstrate that, when it comes to discussions of Tolkien, religion is not a marginalized topic.
These promotional materials are being dishonest. One has to suspect that such a positioning is intentional. After all, the point of promotional materials is to generate interest for a book, for an event, etc. They are tapping into a sentiment that they feel will draw people to whatever they are marketing. I think it is a disservice to Tolkien scholars and to Tolkien fans to misrepresent scholarship in this way.
If you want to write about or host an event concerning Tolkien and religion, excellent. Please don’t, however, ignore the other scholars who have been diligently working on this topic for decades in order to make your work seem more important. To broaden this out, it does not apply to only religious studies of Tolkien, of course. I said I was using this as a case study because I have seen multiple examples of it recently in this area. This tactic, claiming marginalized status for a mainstream idea, has been used in other areas of our field.
Therefore, to anyone promoting events, publications, etc. I would like to issue a challenge: do your homework. Know the field you are talking about, and try to honestly represent it in your materials. Situate it in conversation with scholarship, not in contrast to it. Just like Tolkien, we are all influenced by and are influencers of our scholarly area and culture more generally, though not to the same degree. We should hold that in our minds as a responsibility. We are not here to make money; we are here to further understanding and create meaningful dialogue.
Luke Shelton PhD 