Published: Cities and Strongholds:
Essays on the Habitations of Tolkien’s Legendarium, edited by Cami Agan
I am thrilled to announce that a wonderful collection of essays edited by Cami Agan, Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth, is now available. The link leads to the Mythopoeic Society’s announcement (and it links to three ways to purchase it: trade paperback, Kindle from Amazon, and Draft2Digital ebook versions). The price ranges from $9.99 to $19.95 USD!
The 13 essays in Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth foreground processes of making and constructing Arda — either within the Secondary world or for readers/viewers — and thus continually assert that the habitations form a vital part of the tales within that world. Because they assume a complex arrangement complete with social, familial, artistic, and political relations, cities and strongholds often define their inhabitants as crafting boundaries between themselves and the outside, the visitor, and the unknown. These essays reveal that all cities and strongholds of the legendarium function as makers of meaning, containers of relations, outposts of history, and evocations of the Past.
The essays are:
Tolkien’s Cities of the First Age as Mythic Infrastructure by Maria K. Alberto
Grounding and Traversing the Great Tales: Elven Strongholds of Beleriand by Cami D. Agan
A Fallen Woman of Arda: The Battle over Wills and Desire of Aredhel of Gondolin by Emily Venkatesan
Re-Enchanting Built Spaces: On Dwarves and Dwarven Places by Kenton Sena and Kaelyn Harris
Fair and Perilous: Nature Enchanted in Lothlórien by Rebecca Davis
“But the Beauty of Mithril Did not Tarnish”: Tolkien, Material Culture, and the Mathom by Nicholas Birns
Tolkien’s Panopticon and Foucault’s Towers: A Study on the Limits and Nature of Power by Craig A. Boyd and Joanna Boyd-Wilhite
“Within Bounds That He Has Set”: A Stylistic Analysis of Cities and Strongholds in The Lord of the Rings by Robin Anne Reid
“It Mourns for Beleg even as You Do”: ‘Living’ Swords in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium by Birgitte Breemerkamp
“Forgot Even the Stones”: Stone Monuments and Imperfect Cultural and Personal Memories in The Lord of the Rings by Kristine Larsen
The Many Faces of Lake-Town by Marie Bretagnolle
Architecture as Cultural Signifier: Building Identities of Middle-earth on Screen by Mina D. Lukić
“The Stories That Stayed with You”: Rivendell and Memory, Trauma, and Nostalgia for the American Millennial by Danny Saldana
My essay is my “Covid essay,” the one I struggled with during the lockdown and after! I imagine the same is true for all the writers, and most of all, Cami as editor.
Now I just have to find some time to read All The Other essays . . . .she says, looking at her TBR piles . . . .
If you have a monograph or a collection of essays, I’d be happy to post an announcement with the links!