Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth

Now available for pre-order!

I’m happy to announce that the first publication in the new Studies in Tolkien series (McFarland Books) is now available to pre-order (and will be available in 2026, exact month TBD!).

Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth, edited by me, Christopher Vaccaro, and Stephen Yandell. It is the second book¹ but the first collection, on (multiple) queer approaches to Tolkien’s legendarium, adaptations, and transformative works (i.e. the “many paths”² that one can take to Middle-earth!).

The anthology contains a Preface and Introduction co-written by the three editors; three chapters on “Queer Moralities”; three chapters on “Queer Intersections”; four chapters on “Intra-Male Queerness”; and two chapters on “Queer Transformations” (fanfiction!); and a chronological bibliography on “Tolkien Studies and Alterity” covering publications from 1970-2024.³

Please note that the cover on the image at the link is the second one created by the design team at McFarland. When we learned (from friends and readers online!) that the first cover was generated from AI imagery, we requested that they create a new cover for the book using a Shutterstock photograph with no AI elements because, as far as we can determine, Shutterstock does respect the intellectual rights of photographers and fairly compensates them for their work.

ETA: A friend of mine linked to the original Shutterstock image which allows me to give credit to the photographer: Denis Belitsky (Ukraine). I may be able to add a photo credit when we are at the final proof stage: I’m adding this information to my notes.

The design team said that they did manually photoshop some additional paths in Shutterstock image to emphasize the "many paths" in the subtitle.

The three editors are *very* happy with the results, and with McFarland’s willingness to work with us on the matter.

ETA 2: There will be an ebook! I checked with our editor and learned that McFarland’s policy is to produce both print and ebook versions of all their books unless there are limitations for books with permissions that restrict e-format. They try to release the ebook as close to the print release as possible (though it can take longer if there are staffing or other time constraints.

I checked the page for Rob Tally’s new Orc book (my hard copy has been mailed — I pre-ordered it December 4, 2024), and it’s available in both print ($29.95) and eformat ($19.99).

1. Jane Chance’s Tolkien, Self and Other: “This Queer Creature” is the first book and inspired me to propose the collection to Chris and Steve, some years before the Covid lockdown. However, our project in the collection differed from Chance’s whose argument was based on the definition of queer as generic “difference.” I discuss the limitations of her approach in my stack on The Many Meanings of “Queer” as well as my frustration with Chance’s argument, especially “her rhetorical framing of "queerness,” her focus on maleness and masculinity (even down to her choice of queer theorists), and her argument about Tolkien’s use of ‘apartheid’” as well as her defense of Tolkien based on her definition “of queerness as any sort of ‘difference,’ [that allowed her to argue] that that all aspects of Tolkien's identity and scholarship can be read as queer and that his awareness of his own marginalization and abject position resulted in him feeling empathy for others who were also Othered as shown in his teaching, scholarship, and fiction.” Drawing on the Oxford English Dictionary’s entries, I explore the complex multiple meanings of “queer” to contrast with how often the complexity is ignored in scholarship that reduces the layers to the simple binary of “homosexual”/”alterity.”

In 2016, Jane Chance's Tolkien, Self, and Other: "This Queer Creature," was the first monograph to apply queer theory to Tolkien's work appeared. The publication by one of the founding scholars of Tolkien Studies who has written and edited ground-breaking works relating to Tolkien and alterity marks a major moment in Tolkien studies.

But as I read and re-read the book, I found myself frustrated at times, not so much with Chance's discussion of the interwoven connections between Tolkien’s scholarship, his teaching choices and notes, and his fiction, but with her rhetorical framing of "queerness,” her focus on maleness and masculinity (even down to her choice of queer theorists), and her argument about Tolkien’s use of “apartheid.”

Working from the meaning of queerness as any sort of “difference,” Chance argues that all aspects of Tolkien's identity and scholarship can be read as queer and that his awareness of his own marginalization and abject position resulted in him feeling empathy for others who were also Othered as shown in his teaching, scholarship, and fiction.

2. The reference to “many paths” in our title comes from a song by Bilbo that the four hobbits are singing on the first night of their journey just before they meet the Elves in the Shire (The Fellowship of the Ring [FR], I, iii, 114-15).

3. In earlier years, I would have posted (with permission only) the titles and authors, but the backlash against the “Tolkien and Diversity” seminar based on a program consisting of titles and authors, while not stopping us from doing the work, leaves me inclined to leave such announcements up to individual authors while acknowledging that that safety and security may lead some to choose not to make that information publicly available on social media.