Stratofanatic's Emporium

I meant to post this about this a few days ago, but academic work swamped me. Last Tuesday, I returned from a wonderful 6-day trip to the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA). Two days were spent in travel, 3 in intense conferencing, and a final day was spent in Disney World -- our way of celebrating my dissertation defense. The conference itself was amazing. Highlights: tons of free sf and fantasy books a host of back issues from JFA saw someone, completely unexpectedly, someone I had gone to my first undergrad college with -- way back in 1998. heard a lot of fantastic papers. My favorites were both on one panel: G.P. Canavan proposed a new typology of fantasy texts, and Matthew Oliver wrote on 1st-person epic fantasy, which deserved kudos for mentioning Glen Cook the panel I moderated on Robert E. Howard was a rousing success with a fantastic discussion afterward. Howard's got some major fans out there. My anecdote about reading Howard for the firs...

. . . is simply showing up, as they say. Today marked the poster presentations for Scholars Week 2017 here at MTSU. My own poster (based off my dissertation, of course) managed to snag 2nd place. That's not quite the accomplishment it sounds, however -- there were only two graduate students from the Liberal Arts presenting, so I was simultaneously the 2nd best and absolute worst in my category. Still, the prize money remains quite hefty, setting me ever closer to my ultimate goal of acquiring Bill Gates-like wealth through academic labor. And it looks good for our English department, always a nice goal.

I have sad news to report. A fella I knew from my MA program at Ohio State, Okla Elliot , passed away two nights ago. That he was in his mid-30s is tragic enough, but he was also one of the most energetic intellectuals and academics I've ever known. Although he was around my age, here's a list of his accomplishments: Ph.D. in Holocaust and Legal Studies co-author (w/ Raul Clement) of a science fiction novel The Doors You Mark are Your Own Published a book of short fiction called From the Crooked Timber Published a book of poetry called The Cartographer's Ink Published a translation of a book of poems by German author Jurgen Becker Author of a well-received book on Bernie Sanders; Bernie Sanders: The Essential Guide Just finished another book on Pope Francis: Pope Francis: The Essential Guide Co-edited an on-line magazine, As It Ought To Be , to which I once submitted a short article Published a host of poems in various prestigious literary magazines, plus tons of ...

Passed, one dissertation defense: "Rage and Recognition in Middle-earth: The Political Conflict Between Ancient and Modern in J.R.R. Tolkien." Much gratitude for all of those who came -- about 10 people besides my committee, faculty members and friends -- it meant a lot that so many people showed up. All that's left is some tweaks and fixing up the formatting, then this puppy goes to the MTSU College of Graduate Studies!

Biographies and I have a vexed relationship. On one hand, they're probably the most accessible types of scholarly writing out there. On the other hand, if you're already decently conversant in the subject of the biography, the ratio of "new facts" to "time invested" starts sinking rapidly. Thus, while I'd been hearing about The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Phillip and Carol Zaleski for a while, I've deliberately avoided it. I already know Tolkien pretty well, and the other Inklings aren't that vital to my research. (Plus, my brand of lit crit doesn't rate biography very highly, although I won't ignore it.) Anyway, I picked it up, and it's pretty good -- well-written with lively prose and story-telling. I'd been worried at first after seeing some snide remarks in a few on-line commentaries, but the book is generally impressive. All the Zaleskis' other books have to do with spiritual matters, and they even...

So,  yesterday, I was complaining about the endless hours consumed on bureaucratic tasks that, at best, have marginal value -- i.e., the creation of upper-division syllabi in the hopes that some search committee might, maybe, possibly think slightly better of your application.** Anyway, against my better judgment, I really got into the whole syllabus-creation thing . . . and I ended up creating another syllabus for a 15-week course in modern fantasy literature. Now, what kind of books should go on such a thing? Well, I'll exclude the 19th-century people (Dunsany, Morris), although I'd probably include them in a more comprehensive survey-level course. I'd have to have a smattering of sword and sorcery texts, given its influence, plus a sampling of the relevant Inklings. After that, I'd have to go with the various responses to Tolkien's influence. Overall, though, I want to avoid the massive tomes that generally mark post-Tolkien fantasy -- there's only so much ...

When you're on the job market, one of the aggravating recommendations they give is to compose a number of upper-division syllabi for courses you might someday teach. In theory, having such syllabi makes you look more prepared. In reality, by the time you're ready to teach such classes (and assuming you ever get a job), you're probably older and wiser and have updated your pedagogy considerably.  Anyway, regardless, I'm working on a Tolkien syllabus. There's a couple of good resources out there: a Waymeet for Tolkien Teachers website , as well as the recent book edited by Leslie Donovan, Approaches to Teaching Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings . There's any number of ways to do a course like this, but I decided on a single-author course that covers Tolkien's life and works. The major question is this: what works should one require in a 15-week course devoted to Tolkien? I came up with the following list: Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings: 50th A...

Came across an "existential comic" that focuses on critical theory and The Lord of the Rings . On one hand, the joke's pretty clever, so give them props for that. On the other hand, I think this is indicative of why scholars informed by critical theory have a tough time saying anything nice about Tolkien --the moral norms of the text, including all the social hierarchies, are precisely the kind of thing that motivated critical theorists to develop their theories (which, as you may have surmised, are critical of the status quo). The comic may be found here:  existential comics involving The Lord of the Rings .

Furnish, Timothy R. High Towers and Strong Places: A Political History of Middle-earth . Oloris Publishing, 2016. Print. I ordered this book off interlibrary loan, highly suspicious that it might be one of those vapid, dreary productions for a general audience, but Furnish only needed two pages to win me over with his intelligence, insight, and assiduous scouring of the secondary literature. His book is a "political history" of Middle-earth, which means that he examines the structure and organization of the various political entities that mark Middle-earth. Much of this information, of course, can already be found in Tolkien's texts and appendices, but Furnish collects them together and situates them inside a theoretical context provided by contemporary political science and international relations. The result is a highly accessible, highly enlightening examination of how wide and varied Tolkien's sub-created polities actually are. Between the Elves, Dwarves, Men...

I volunteered to be one of the (many) judges for this years awards in two academic categories, and I'm really excited about the long lists. I can't give any details, but I doubt it would violate any ethical standards to note that everything on the lists looks fascinating. Interlibrary loan just got my first round of orders, and hopefully they'll get here soon -- dissertation schmissertation, I can't wait to have at 'em. I haven't read nearly as many of the books as I thought I would have, but that's just part of the fun.

I meant to post about Scientia  a while ago, but I'm looking through my February entries and realize it must have slipped my mind. We had our Spring deadline for submissions on February 10th . I was quite pleased to see that we had 10 new submissions from a host of fields (biology, economics, political science) to go along with our usual concentration of English department contributions.** That brings our yearly total up to 24 submissions, which greatly exceeds last years total of 18 submissions . . . and the year prior to that, before I was at the helm, had only 10 submissions. So, our efforts over the last two years have paid off. Following the Spring deadline, our staff also really stepped up, and we managed to get all submissions reviewed within two weeks. Given that the wait time on submissions for most academic journals is usually measured in months, I think the Scientia collective earns itself another gold star. Out of our new submissions, quite a few got mentally mark...