Tolkien seminars

We are pleased to announce the schedule for the Oxford Tolkien Seminar in Trinity Term 2025. The seminar will be held at Magdalen College on Fridays at 5pm, in the Sophia Sheppard Room, except week 8 (see below). Please ask the porters for directions.

Week 1: Grace O’Duffy (University of Oxford) ‘Middle-Earth Post-#MeToo’’
Week 2: Jolina Bradley (University of Oxford) ‘Tolkien and Arthurian Romance: The Interlace Structure of The Lord of the Rings’
Week 3: Gabriel Shenk (Signum University) ‘J.R.R. Tolkien at the BBC’
Week 4: Andoni Cossio (Basque Country) ‘Trees, Tales, and Tolkien: A Growing Environmental Consciousness from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings’
Week 5: Giuseppe Pezzini (University of Oxford) ‘Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation’ (Book launch)
Week 6: Tom Emanuel (University of Glasgow) ‘Tolkien the post-Christian? A Proposition’
Week 7: Eliot Vale (University of Oxford) ‘Imitative Translations of Beowulf: Tolkien, Lehmann, and McCully’
Week 8: [SUMMER COMMON ROOM] Christopher Snyder (Mississippi State University) ‘The Sub-Creation Theory of J.R.R. Tolkien: Literary Criticism or Theology?’

We are also happy to let you know that the recordings of the MT and HT seminars are now are available on YouTube and/or The Fantasy Literature Podcast. For more information: tolkien50.web.ox.ac.uk/event/tolkien-50th-anniversary-seminar-series
Type: Seminar Series
Series organiser: Professor Stuart Lee (University of Oxford)
Timing: 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.
Organising department: Faculty of English Language and Literature

Talks:

Thursday 16 October 2025

‘H. P. Lovecraft: The Madness and the Horror’
Date: 16 October 2025, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker : Professor Stuart Lee (University of Oxford)
Venue: Cohen Quadrangle, Walton Street OX1 2HD
Venue Details: The Fitzhugh Lecture Theatre, Cohen Quad, Walton Street, Oxford (Exeter College’s annex)
Organiser: Professor Stuart Lee (University of Oxford)
Hosts: TBA

Thursday 23 October 2025

‘Fantasy & the Occult: Charles Williams, Dion Fortune and the Order of the Golden Dawn’
Date: 23 October 2025, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker : Felix Taylor (English, St Hugh’s)
Venue: Cohen Quadrangle, Walton Street OX1 2HD
Venue Details: The Fitzhugh Lecture Theatre, Cohen Quad, Walton Street, Oxford (Exeter College’s annex)
Organiser: Professor Stuart Lee (University of Oxford)
Hosts: TBA

Thursday 6 November 2025

'Philip Pullman: Sense of an ending'
Date: 6 November 2025, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker : Dr Margaret Kean (St Hilda's College, University of Oxford)
Venue: Cohen Quadrangle, Walton Street OX1 2HD
Venue Details: The Fitzhugh Lecture Theatre, Cohen Quad, Walton Street, Oxford (Exeter College’s annex)
Organiser: Professor Stuart Lee (University of Oxford)
Hosts: TBA

Thursday 13 November 2025

‘Translating Fantasy: Language, Culture and Mythology — with a Navajo Case study'
Date: 13 November 2025, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker s: Dr Mark Atherton (University of Oxford), Barbara Fischer
Venue Details: The Fitzhugh Lecture Theatre, Cohen Quad, Walton Street, Oxford (Exeter College’s annex)
Organiser: Professor Stuart Lee (University of Oxford)
Hosts: TBA

Thursday 20 November 2025

‘C.S. Lewis and the Atmospherics of Fantasy’
Date: 20 November 2025, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker : Michael Ward
Venue: Cohen Quadrangle, Walton Street OX1 2HD
Venue Details: The Fitzhugh Lecture Theatre, Cohen Quad, Walton Street, Oxford (Exeter College’s annex),
Organiser: Professor Stuart Lee (University of Oxford)
Hosts: TBA

Thursday 27 November 2025

‘Prequels and the Mother-Ship: House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones’
Date: 27 November 2025, 13:00 - 14:00
Speaker : Prof Carolyne Larrington (University of Oxford)
Venue: Cohen Quadrangle, Walton Street OX1 2HD
Venue Details: The Fitzhugh Lecture Theatre, Cohen Quad, Walton Street, Oxford (Exeter College’s annex)
Organiser: Professor Stuart Lee (University of Oxford)
Hosts: TBA

Editors: Katy Terry, Hope Lukonyomoi-Otunnu