New Society publication: Tolkien the Pagan? Reading Middle-earth through a Spiritual Lens

The Tolkien Society and Luna Press Publishing are pleased to announce that Tolkien the Pagan? Reading Middle-earth through a Spiritual Lens: Proceedings of The Tolkien Society Seminar 2018, the nineteenth book in the Peter Roe series, is now available to preorder.

Edited by Anna Milon, and published under the auspices of the Peter Roe Memorial Fund, Tolkien the Pagan? Reading Middle-earth through a Spiritual Lens is a collection of five papers presented at The Tolkien Society Seminar held at the Hilton Leeds City on Sunday 1 July 2018.

The book will be released on Monday 25 March to celebrate Tolkien Reading Day, an annual event launched by the Society in 2003 to encourage reading of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Order

The book is available to order now for £8.

Place your pre-order with Luna Press Publishing directly.

An e-book version is also available on all major platforms for just £4.99. Search for “Tolkien the Pagan? Reading Middle-earth through a Spiritual Lens” or the ISBN-13: 978-1-911143-80-2.

Description

This volume of proceedings contains papers from the largest and, perhaps, most diverse Tolkien Society Seminar to date. Following a much-contested Call for Papers, Tolkien the Pagan? Reading Middle-earth through a Spiritual Lens explores Tolkien’s complex use of religious ideology, the readers’ approach to their beloved fictional world via unusual spiritual and philosophical channels, and how Middle-earth almost became a faith unto itself.

ISBN-13 for print book: 978-1-911143-79-6

ISBN-13 for e-book: 978-1-911143-80-2

Contents

Introduction

Anna Milon

On the Providential Historicism of Middle-earth

Ryan Haecker

The Nature of Arda: An Artwork as the Embodiment of the Flame Imperishable

Aslı Bülbül Candaş

Honouring the Valar, Seeking the Elf Within: The Curious History of Tolkien Spirituality and the Religious Affordance of Tolkien’s Literary Mythology

Markus Altena Davidsen

Tolkien’s Mandos, Pratchett’s Death

Justin Lewis-Anthony

Also Sprach Fëanor, Spirit of Fire: A Nietzschean Reading of Tolkien’s Mythology?

Giovanni Carmine Costabile

About the Peter Roe Memorial Fund

The Tolkien Society’s seminar proceedings – and other booklets such as the Sindarin Lexicon – are published under the auspices of the Peter Roe Memorial Fund. The Fund commemorates Peter Roe who died in 1979 aged 16 after being hit by a speeding lorry outside his home. He was on his way to buy envelopes to enclose his enthusiastic letter to the Society. Peter was clearly an incredibly talented young man, producing stories, artwork and maps. Peter’s Dwarfish Fragments were published in Mallorn 15 in September 1980. Proceeds from the sale of Peter Roe books go back into the Fund to ensure that it is self-perpetuating. The Society will continue to produce book in the “Peter Roe Series” to honour his memory.