The Relative Strengths of Lewis & Tolkien Scholarship
Part 2: A Summary and Some Niggles
This post is the second of a planned three or four-part series responding to a Lewis scholar’s blog posts in which he explores the question of why Tolkien scholarship is stronger than Lewis scholarship. After I respond in, in my final post I will discuss how this event is similar to two others that I have written about recently (one in this Newsletter, in Decorum vs. Diversity, and the other in Mythlore1).
In Part 1 of my series, the Introduction, I give some background on why I wrote the original response to Dickieson's series, despite his invitation to respond being limited to Lewis scholars, as well as describing the lack of engagement to my response from Dickieson and his commenters. My Substack response is somewhat longer than my original response in my fandom Dreamwidth journal, and, I hope, somewhat more coherent than that earlier piece (in 2021).
In Part 2 of my series, this newsletter, “A Summary and Some Niggles,” I summarize Dickieson’s overall argument and the reasoning behind his self-described "fighting words thesis," and then explain my niggles with some of his claims.
Not only am I largely in agreement with Dickieson's overall argument, I enjoyed reading the series because of the quality of his writing and because of his engagement with a number of critical/cultural concerns that are of interest to me.
My niggles, which are about Tolkien scholarship, are not always disagreements with Dickieson’s claims. In fact, I often agree and can offer additional support for his claim based on my knowledge of Tolkien scholarship. My knowledge includes publications outside my own areas of interest (reception studies, queer studies, critical race studies, and applied lingistics/stylistics) because of my work with David Bratman on his “Year’s Work in Tolkien Studies,” published annually in Tolkien Studies.2
The Summary and then . . . NIGGLES!
In Part 1 of his trilogy, Dickieson argues that there were four unique events that affected Tolkien readership and led to "creative scholarly energy" that was (is?) lacking in Lewis studies. Part 2 compares and contrasts the literary "breadth and depth" of Lewis' and Tolkien's publications, and Part 3 covers a number of "other [external] factors" in the scholarship that differed enough to affect the strengths of each field.
My first niggle is with Dickieson's use of the word "stronger" in his title; my other niggles are with some of the specific claims about the two fields of study in the first and third installments.
In this post, I discuss my niggles with the word “stronger” and with his Part 1 reasons. In the next post, I will discuss my (lengthy!) response to Dickieson’s Part 3 which may have to become two posts, making this a five-part series (there will be a conclusion!).3
Niggle #1: What does “stronger” even mean in this context?
In his first post, Dickieson argues that a number of publications on Tolkien are stronger than publications on Lewis. He refers to publication catalogs (Lewis vs. Tolkien) and the results of the short-lists and finalists for the Mythopoeic Awards the past few years, but there’s no single, clear definition of what characterizes “stronger” scholarship from “weaker” scholarship.
In Part 2, however, Dickieson expands on what he says in Part 1 with some specific characteristics (bolded in the quote below):
However, if we look at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, the finalists for the last few years in the category of Inklings Studies in the Mythopoeic Awards, or recent academic press catalogues–all places where Lewis and Tolkien are relevant–there is a vibrancy and critical depth to leading Tolkien scholarship that only individual books in Lewis scholarship can meet (para. 2, Part 2 Literary Breadth and Depth) (my emphasis).
My niggle is that I strongly suspect there is a correlation between “larger,” referring to the numbers of publications, and “stronger,” referring to “vibrancy,” and “critical depth,” although I am not sure if Dickieson means “critical depth” to refer to the number of publications or to their quality! If he means quality, I would like to know what characteristics of a text indicate "critical depth" in a scholarly book.
If my sense of the correlation is accurate, then we can probably credit Jackson’s LotR for the major growth in scholarship as well as well as the growth of fandom. However, if I apply Sturgeon’s law (90% of everything is crud), I can then argue that it is possible to claim there’s more stronger criticism (numerically) about Tolkien because the total body of work on Tolkien is larger (also numerically) than for Lewis.
My niggling question is whether the percentage of “excellent” scholarship on Tolkien is larger than the percentage of “excellent” scholarship on Lewis (however “excellent” is defined), given the disparity in size between the two fields. It would be difficult to arrive at a percentage because I know from personal experience that what some scholars consider excellent work others consider terrible (and not just badly written, but “perverse” and “corrupting” Tolkien’s ‘vision’ which is another rant for another day — because, yes, I have been so accused!).
One could look at number/percentage of awards, and there is always that favored metric of number of citations and rankings as well as the rankings of journals in which essays appear (to move beyond a single focus on books). Since humanities as a field has not succumbed to the idea of absolute rankings of journals to the extent the sciences have, I am not sure how valid such a method would be.
Dickieson focuses on monographs and anthologies rather than journal articles; books are featured in catalogs and considered for more awards than essays are. But most academic or critical monographs grow from earlier journal publications (not to mention presentations at conferences), and I suspect there are many published articles that for one reason or another are never developed into books.4
My niggle is based on my having read a great deal more Tolkien scholarship (for my own research, for my students' projects, and for the bibliographic work I did for David) than Dickieson acknowledges having read. I know that a good deal of what I could consider weaker scholarship exists.
I define “weaker scholarship” as work that does not engage fully with relevant scholarship; or that only provides minimal support from primary texts for the argument; or which cherry-picks evidence to support the argument without considering counter-evidence; or which presents arguments based on assumptions the author assumes the audience shares although that may not be the case; or that are just badly written -- or sometimes, a combination of two or more of the above characteristics.
I cannot prove my sense that it's possible the percentage of excellent criticism is roughly the same in both fields of scholarship, and in fact, I may be totally wrong because I have no knowledge of Lewis scholarship, but I think it's a strong possibility. I discussed the growing number of publications in Tolkien studies and what implications that has for students and beginning scholars trying to make their way into the field in a 2018 presentation at MythCon where I talked about bibliographic scholarship. I provide a few quotes below, but due to Mythlore's excellent open-access publishing policy, you can read the whole talk over there!5
I talked about using the databases to get a sense of what has been published, on what topics, and the change in topics and approaches over time. Here is what I found in a July 13, 2018, search in the Modern Languages Citation Index (which indexes over 13,000 journals in the fields of literature and languages):
The current number of publications listed for a Subject (SU) search on “Tolkien” is 2800 works including single-author monographs, essay collections, peer-reviewed articles, general articles, and editions. The earliest publication listed appeared in 1952, so Johnson’s bibliography is required to see what was published before that date.
I then limited my search to everything published by 1999 (the year before Drout and Wynne’s article appeared) to see what they were dealing with: the total for that period is 1004 publications. That means that from 2000-2018, the MLA added 1,796 publications on Tolkien which averages out to nearly 100 publications a year. The numbers clearly show the rising interest in publishing on Tolkien’s legendarium and associated works as well as the different types of publications:
Academic Journals: 1,744
Book Articles: 837
Books: 162
Dissertation Abstracts: 51
Editions: 5
This overall growth has a number of implications, but the most obvious is that it is no longer possible to have claim to have read, even cursorily in some cases, all the published Tolkien scholarship indexed in the MLA database, not even if you limit it to peer-reviewed articles and books.
My access to my university’s databases was cut off in 2020 when I retired and escaped from Texas,6 but I am sure the number of publications on Tolkien has only increased, including dissertations. I consider the number of dissertations published on Tolkien an important indicator for two reasons.
The first reason is that many (not all) people who write dissertations on a topic/author follow up with some sort of publication based on that work (if not a book, journal articles). Related to that reason is that dissertations indicate the kind of theories and approaches that are current at the time they were written.
The second is that a number of the first and second generation of Tolkienists were advised against doing dissertations on Tolkien. That advice seems to no longer be widespread although there are probably individual programs where it would be difficult, if not impossible, to do a dissertation on Tolkien for various reasons.
I have heard stories from some of the people who had to argue in order to do a dissertation on Tolkien back in the early years, just as I have heard stories from the first people to write on science fiction, or feminist science fiction. One common element is that the students had to work without advice from their advisors who were not aware of the little relevant scholarship that did exist on the subjects. By early years, I mean in the 1960s and 1970s!.
Two Niggles (One Small & One Large) with Part 1
First, a summary of Dickieson’s Part 1: Creative Breaks that Inspired Tolkien Readers
The four “creative breaks” (events) that Dickieson identifies as reasons supporting his argument that Tolkien scholarship is stronger than Lewis’ are: the larger fandom; Tolkien’s critical/theoretical scholarship; Tolkien scholars arguing that his work is “real” literature (while the Lewis scholars “simply stepped to the side and did the analysis they wanted to do without worrying about what the MLA Hall Monitors thought of their work”); and the superiority of Peter Jackson’s LotR film adaptations.
I agree with the fandom being larger (even before the films), and I would also argue that the Jackson films, as controversial as they were, also contributed to the growth in Tolkien scholarship. I emphasize the controversial nature of the films because recent online commentary about Amazon’s Rings of Power tends to present the Jackson films (in retrospect) as wonderful adaptations.
As someone active in Tolkien online fandom (on LiveJournal from 2003-2009) because of the films, I can say the there was a great deal of dislike even hatred of the film adaptations expressed by a number of people who were fans of Tolkien before the films were made ( No Tom Bombadil! No Scouring of the Shire! EvilFaramir! CrazyDenethor!).7
I have a small niggle with Dickieson’s claim about the impact of the Jackson films, which he argues were superior to the Narnia adaptations, and thus “inspired” more scholarship: the niggle is that he considers only “budding intellectuals and authors” instead of established authors in related or other fields who might have become engaged in Tolkien studies because of the films.
Still, there is a difference in substance that enhances that development so that the Peter Jackson films have inspired any number of budding intellectuals and authors to turn their critical eye and creative pen to the task of scholarship (Part 1).
I completely agree that the LotR adaptations are superior to the Narnia ones (and about the flaws in The Hobbit although I love some parts of that film immensely). And yes, the films brought massive popular, critical, and academic attention to Tolkien's work, but I would add that they also brought massive media attention to Tolkien scholars who were suddenly being sought out for interviews by journalists and who were brought to campuses (like mine!) for talks on Tolkien and the films, as well as speaking at other venues (bookstores and book groups).
I have heard from Douglas Anderson and Verlyn Flieger that they suddenly became in demand for presentations during the years of the films. I think those talks led to more fans (some of whom were students) who realized it was possible to write about Tolkien’s work, not to mention about the films themselves.
Now, granted, some of the increase in Tolkien scholarship was driven by Tolkien teachers and scholars who had been immersed in Tolkien's work from a literary studies perspective for decades not liking the films very much and saying so at length. Those publications might be worth a later post because of the difference between what scholars trained in ‘literary studies’ see as important in an adaptation can differ from what ‘film studies’ scholars see as important in an adaptation!
But there were also scholars who had not worked on Tolkien before and who loved the films (as well as Tolkien’s legendarium). I was one of them! I spent the first ten years after I was hired into a tenure-track job working on feminist speculative fiction, culminating in editing an encyclopedia on Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy.
When I first heard about a live-action adaptation of Tolkien’s work, I was dubious until I saw a trailer in a theatre and recognized the mines of Moria. I saw The Fellowship of the Ring, fell in love with it, as I had with LotR when I was read it the first time at age ten, and proceeded to see the film forty-five times before it left the theatres,8 and the next thing I knew I was re-reading Tolkien’s fiction and reading The History of Middle-earth, and writing articles and grants and teaching Tolkien courses with a medieval historian friend. My friends in feminist sf (a very small area back then!) were confused.9
I returned to fandom, online this time (as opposed to the con fandom and APA-fandoms I was active in during the 1970s and 1980s), and started writing fanfiction — and then started publishing research on fanfiction — as well as writing on the films and on Tolkien's style -- so I am not your typical “Tolkien scholar."10
There were many scholars working on Tolkien who were trained in different historical periods of literary studies, and in different humanities fields. This range of specializations and interests resulted in more scholarship drawing on recent critical theories in order to build on the earlier work by medievalists and folklorists who had originated Tolkien scholarship decades earlier.11 In the wake of Jackson's films, Tolkien’s work began to be discussed more and more in the context of the Modern period, especially the “war poets/writers” who fought in WWI (as he did), and even in postmodern contexts -- sometimes by medievalists!
Tolkien studies was always multi-disciplinary, attracting people in literary studies, history, archeology, and linguistics, but there was a popular and academic perception of "medieval" dominance that was only heightened when Jane Chance created the “Tolkien at Kalamazoo” sponsoring group at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Later, Dimitra Fimi brought Tolkien scholarship to the International Medieval Congress at Leeds in the U.K.
Tolkien was himself a medievalist, so it makes sense that those trained in his field could see the value of the medieval elements in his work. But the field could not grow if it was restrained to ONLY medievalists working with the medieval texts that he knew.
In the longer term (because it has now been two decades since the first film was released), the younger fans of those films who have gone on to graduate programs are bringing new energies and methods to "Tolkien studies." I run the Tolkien Studies area for the national Popular Culture Association conference where I see a much broader range of approaches and interpretations of Tolkien’s work (and work on the adaptations of his work, and transformative works, such as fanfiction) than I ever saw at Kalamazoo.12
Another result of the growing interest in Tolkien, and Tolkien scholarship, is the growth of Tolkien-specific conferences and journals dedicated to Tolkien scholarship as well as more multi-disciplinary conferences and journals that are open for scholars to submit their work on Tolkien.
One of the most important things to note that I do not think Dickieson takes into account is that the growth in Tolkien scholarship is not limited to work being done in the U.S. and the U.K. The translations of Tolkien’s works (and not just his fiction) into multiple languages means that there are Tolkien fan groups all over the world, and academics all over the world are doing scholarship in their languages (and often in English as well!), running their own conferences, and publishing in their own journals. The most outstanding and longstanding example is Walking Tree Publishers!
“Tolkien” (meaning, his legendarium) has grown into a global phenomenon which was enhanced by Jackson’s film adaptations, which have also become objects of study in their own right (rather than being evaluated at how well they re-created Tolkien). Peter Jackson’s films not only led to more scholarship on Tolkien’s legendarium, but more scholarship on the films, as films, which includes reception studies.
Martin Barker's Lord of the Rings World Audience Project involved international teams of scholars to distribute, collect, and analyze almost 25,000 questionnaires from film viewers.
Barker and Kate Egan write about the challenges of running and international project.
Publications related to the project are also available.
And then Martin Barker organized the World Hobbit Project along the same lines. When I was googling around to confirm the links above, I found a site where the Canadian Team of the World Hobbit Project describes some of their work.
The work done by film scholars (along with some “literature” scholars who do not perceive the films as a threat to Tolkien’s work) challenges the assumption by some literary scholars (which may include Dickieson, based on his third reason) about what “literary” scholarship should be about which is where we arrive at my first strong niggle.
I am old enough to have been trained by teachers in my undergraduate and master’s programs in English who shared that assumption, one which I resisted from the start because of my love for science fiction and fantasy (especially but not only the works of J. R. R. Tolkien)! My resistance led me into reading and writing about all sorts of things that my first teachers, who were very much shaped by their training and period, could never have imagined. I am grateful to them for the foundation they gave me, but if I’d spent a quarter century teaching only what and how I was taught, I not only would have been bored out of my skull, I would have been cheating my students out of knowledge of what the field of “English” currently is.
The Strong Niggle
I am quoting the part of Dickieson’s Part I that I have the strongest feelings about because I do not trust myself to summarize his claim (the parts that drive me to niggling are in bold):
I know that I am overstating things a little bit, but Tolkien scholars were far better at making the case in scholarship that The Lord of the Rings is “real” literature that deserves to be taken seriously not just as a phenomenon of readership but as a literary work that warrants deep, critical study. Perhaps Lewis scholarship simply stepped to the side and did the analysis they wanted to do without worrying about what the MLA Hall Monitors thought of their work. There is something admirable about that approach. But in challenging the presumptions of literary criticism–in showing up for the fight–Tolkien reader-scholars were able to enter into a field of discourse that Lewis reader-scholars have rarely entered. (my emphasis added).
My strongest negative response is to the phrase “real literature”: I am downright allergic to it because I am old enough (67!) to remember how the definition of that category was used against icky inferior “genre” literature (science fiction and fantasy but also westerns, mysteries, and most of all romance), as well as being used against “[white'] women writers” with the rare Token [White] Woman granted the status of “real literature.”13 I did not realize until I started my doctoral program in the late 1980s how much the “real literature” definition also excluded literature by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and working class authors of all ethnic groups.
The Modern Language Association, as the largest professional organization for academics and educators in literature and languages, was one of the institutions that maintained the barriers between “real” literature and "popular” (oh the horror!) literature. But they are only a single large frog in the pond of “English/literary studies,” and even that organization has changed over time.
I have conflicting attitudes about the MLA: I think their bibliographic index is a fantastic tool, but hate that it’s limited in who can access it. I stopped attending their national conference after learning that they would only schedule one paper session on science fiction/fantasy (this was in the early 1990s — I assume there have been some changes since then14 — but I put my energy and money into other organizations and conferences, ones that covered the areas MLA excluded). When they finally produced a special science fiction theme issue of PMLA, the organization's flagship journal, considered the highest-level professional journal in the field, in 2004, I was to say the least unimpressed.
But I am not sure what to make of Dickieson’s ambiguous tone when he describes Tolkien scholars arguing that his work is ‘real’ literature,” and Lewis scholars doing “the analysis they wanted to do without worrying about what the MLA Hall Monitors thought,” and I cordially dislike the reliance on the metaphor of literary criticism being a fight (instead of a dialogue).
As I was thinking through my response to Dickieson's Part 1, I remembered a book that I learned some years ago, an anthology (out of print these days) that indicates there was, at least, one paper session on the Tolkien and Lewis at a 1966 regional MLA.15 The book is:
Mark Hillegas, ed. Shadows of the Imagination: The Fantasies of C. S. Lewis, J R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. Southern Illinois University Press & Feffer & Simons. Crosscurrents: Modern Critiques, Harry T. Moore, General Editor. 1969.
I discovered the Hillegas anthology while doing research on fanzines at the Tolkien Archive at Marquette, a treasure for scholars not only because of the original manuscripts but their incredibly strong (broad and deep) collection of secondary sources including scholarship, teaching materials, and fanzines. As I read through the introduction the looked at the chapters, I realized I had never heard of it.
I had thought the Isaacs and Zimbardo 1968 anthology, Tolkien and the Critics, was the first published academic collection on Tolkien’s work. It was published the year before Hillegas’ anthology, but the paper session that was the foundation for the anthology took place in 1966, two years before the 1968 publication. I supposed to more general “Inklings” focus keeps Tolkienists from spending much time on it. But given my experiences with Tolkien (or sff topics in general) and the Modern Language Association's attitude toward such topics, I was fascinated to read the "Introduction" in which Hillegas goes into detail about the positive response to their 1966 regional MLA session on the works of Lewis and Tolkien, noting that "the room was packed, with people standing at the back and overflowing into the hall. . . the response was so enthusiastic that it seemed worthwhile to carry the discussion over into a book" (xvi). Nobody seemed to be spoiling for a fight in his report of the event!
The purpose of Hillegas' anthology seems to be to rescue the Inklings' fantasy from the "cultist's underground" of pulp/weird sf of the day because the fantasy is so superior to sf (meaning, I guess, that it’s “real literature”? as opposed to sf) primarily because of the "high order of excellence in what Lewis, Tolkien, and Williams have written" as well as their "unique style and technique" (xiv).
The overall impression I get from Hillegas' introduction is that a large part of the Inklings' status (for him) comes from their Oxford connection as well as how their work was written in a "mode valuable for presenting moral or spiritual values, which could not be presented in realistic fiction." Thus, Hillegas argues that this “mode” is why the Inklings' fantasy "appeals especially to the literary community—'serious' novelists and poets, critics, professors of literature—whom one might call 'literary intellectuals'" (xv).
I assume it’s likely there were other people presenting on Tolkien and Lewis and perhaps others of the Inklings in the 1960s, but it would be hard to track information about oral presentations down (a deep dive into an archive of conference programs might do it!). Academic presentations, unless they result in a book or essay, have little visibility.
Other than that specific example which I stumbled across as I wandered through the Archives, I am not surewhat Tolkien scholars did to prove to the MLA that Tolkien’s work was “real literature,” that deserved “deep critical study” that differed from what Lewis scholars did (especially since at least once, in 1966, they were doing it together).
From my perspective, having lived through the decades where English departments denigrated popular/genre literatures, an attitude which can still be found among some departments and conferences, what happened was that the medievalists and folklorists (whose work was probably not considered high status or “real” literature in the same way that Shakespeare, the Victorians, and Modernist literature was) went ahead and did their work, often at their conferences, and published in the journals the edited, without worrying what the MLA thought.
And, as is the nature of academic productions, new ideas and theories were introduced, and here we are today!
In the next post, I tackle what Dickieson calls “the bugbear of literary theory” (in his Part 3) which is one of the changes that occurred between the 1960s and the 2020s. That particular change has been a significant part of my work (since the field of ‘marginalized literatures’ was directly connected to some contemporary theories), and I know how controversial the changes were (starting in the 1970s/1980s) and still are today as the “culture war” rages in the schools and legislatures and communities of the United States (and elsewhere around the world, but I am not well-enough informed about the same sort of movements in other countries to write about them).
"On the Shoulders of Gi(E)nts: The Joys of Bibliographic Scholarship and Fanzines in Tolkien Studies." Mythlore, vol. 37, no. 2 , Article 3. https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol37/iss2/3.
Until a few months ago, I was one of the volunteers helping David Bratman compile the "Year's Work in Tolkien Studies" summaries. That work gave me a window on a wider variety of scholarly topics and approaches than I would have seen otherwise because he assigned me essays and books I would not have read for my own work. This series appears in Tolkien Studies which, unfortunately, is available only by subscription or through Project Muse (a subscription database), but it is well worth seeking out for its thoroughness and detail.
"Tolkien's Literary Theory and Practice," in "The Year's Work on Tolkien Studies 2017," ed. David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 20, 2021, pp. 297-305.
"Tolkien's Literary Theory and Practice," in "The Year's Work on Tolkien Studies 2017," ed. David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 19, 2020, pp. 282-88.
"Tolkien's Literary Theory and Practice," in "The Year's Work on Tolkien Studies 2016," ed. David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 18, 2019, pp. 211-16.
"Tolkien's Literary Theory," in "The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies 2015," ed. David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 15, 2018, pp. 301-307
"General Criticism: The Hobbit," in "The Year’s Work in Tolkien Studies 2014," ed. David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 14, 2017, pp. 229-233.
"Tolkien's Literary Theory and Practice," in "The Year’s Work in Tolkien Studies 2014," ed. David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 14, 2017, pp. 240-247.
"Philology and Language Studies: Tolkien’s Use of English," in "The Year in Tolkien Studies 2013," ed. David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 13, 2016, pp. 283–290.
"Tolkien’s Literary Theory and Practice," in "The Year in Tolkien Studies 2013," ed. David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 13, 2016, pp. 242–257.
Some of the patterns I've observed in the work I summarized over the years are: more work by scholars outside traditional humanities fields being published; more use of Tolkien's own literary theories (specifically, in "On Fairy Stories") to analyze his fiction, and also to apply to other fantasy novels and even films; much more attention being paid toThe Silmarillion; more attention to The History of Middle-earth, as well as the work on films and in reception and fan studies.
In the context of my personal areas of interest, the scholarship on stylistic and linguistic approaches to Tolkien's legendarium and on Tolkien fandoms is growing more slowly than I would like, but it is growing, as is work in reception studies, critical race, and queer studies (all areas I am present in and write about). I have written bibliographic essays on specific sub-fields in Tolkien scholarship (as well as a bibliographic analysis of ALL the scholarship on Lois McMaster Bujold’s SFF!):
Peer-reviewed bibliographic essays on specific sub-fields in Tolkien scholarship:
"Race in Tolkien Studies: A Bibliographic Essay." Tolkien and Alterity, eds. Christopher Vaccaro and Yvette Kisor, Palgrave, 2017, pp. 33-74.
"The History of Scholarship on Female Characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium: A Feminist Bibliographic Essay." Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J. R. R. Tolkien, eds. Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie A. Donovan, Mythopoeic Press, 2015, pp. 13-40.
What can I say: bibliographic research can easily become an addiction, and not just in relation to Tolkien!
"The History of Scholarship on Lois McMaster Bujold's Science Fiction and Fantasy: A Feminist Bibliographic Essay." Biology & Manners: Essays on the Worlds and Works of Lois McMaster Bujold, eds. Regina Yung Lee and Una McCormack, Liverpool UP, 2020, pp. 13-31.
For those wondering what about Part 2 — whether I have any niggles with it — I can only say that the topic — comparing the "breadth and depth" of the two authors' works — is not one I can engage with in any meaningful way because I do not see how the number of books published, or the genre choices, or how accessible an author’s work is perceived as, has anything to do with how much critical attention their work receives, or with the quality of that scholarship.
My three areas of teaching and research interest are creative writing, critical theory, and marginalized literatures, that is, those bodies of work that were historically excluded by the professional classes of critics and scholars primarily because of the identities of the writers. And before I am accused of “identity politics” (one of the favorite bugbears of some Tolkien academics), I will point out that the professional classes doing the exclusion were, and are, composed of straight, white, middle-class and above, men who claimed that they were the “universal” default that need not be identified as anything other than “human”-- an extreme example of identity politics!
In addition, given the relatively recent deaths of Lewis (1963) and Tolkien (1973), the short historiography of criticism and scholarship that exists for both is minimal compared to the centuries of Shakespeare scholarship. I do not think there is enough evidence to make any major argument about the quality of the two areas of scholarship at this point.
I admire Dickieson's elegant use of metaphors in Part 2 to describe the differences that he sees in their work (aquifer, well, tree, orchard), but the subjectivity of a metaphor indicates that he is describing a personal response rather than supporting a specific claim with textual evidence.
I perceive and experience Tolkien's complicated legendarium as like a fantastic forest that I have been exploring for over fifty years (I fell in love with The Lord of the Rings at age ten; I am now sixty-seven) than as "a great tree." Dickieson extends his metaphor for Tolkien’s work into an allegorical claim referencing Niggle's tree, with individual Tolkien work as leaves. While I suspect Tolkien might have agreed with this assessment — he did, after all, write, "Leaf by Niggle — and it is an allegory — that makes no difference to my perception of "breadth and diversity of form" (rather than "depth" only) in Tolkien's legendarium. I can spend many happy hours wandering through different parts of the forest (where there is room for both the Ents & the Entwives!) depending on how I'm feeling.
It's not possible to prove that Dickieson's metaphor of experiencing Tolkien's work as a great tree, is "correct" or an objectively stronger “interpretation" than my metaphor of experiencing it as a fantastic forest (have I mentioned Ithilien is my favorite setting?).
Not all conference presentations get expanded into publications! That is one reason why the Journal of Tolkien Research has a section where scholars can publish what some of us call “orphaned” conference papers, ones that were never expanded for essay publication.
One approach would be to look at the bibliographic scholarship that exists on Lewis and Tolkien. Bibliographic scholarship is not a huge field, but it’s incredibly important: in this case, I am talking about bibliographies of the criticism of the authors (not the bibliographies of their publications although those are important as well). The earliest Tolkien bibliographic publications were just lists of criticism in fanzines, periodicals, and academic journals, and were by Richard West and Judith Johnson. They are difficult to get these days (out of print), but invaluable for their breadth and depth! This approach is mostly listing, not evaluating.
Another type of bibliographic work is more evaluative: that is, the scholar assembles a bibliography but also evaluates the sources. A sterling example of this approach is the essay and bibliography by Michael D. C. Drout and Hilary Wynne (2000(), “Tom Shippey’s J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and a Look Back at Tolkien Criticism Since 1982,” which consists of an extensive bibliography and a bibliographic essay that evaluates the strongest Tolkien scholarship from 1984-2000, primarily focusing on Tom Shippey’s work. In this essay, they identify gaps and problems in the field and identify two major causes: that too many people writing about Tolkien do not bother to find and read the previously published scholarship which results in the second problem, that of repeating the same basic arguments over and over.
Drout and Wynne point to a number of other problems in Tolkien scholarship they would like to see addressed, a number of which I agree with (but not all!) as will I discuss in the “Bugbear” section of this newsletter! See: Drout, Michael D. C. and Hilary Wynne, "Tom Shippey's J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and a Look back at Tolkien Criticism since 1982,'' Envoi 9, no. 2, Fall 2000, pp. 101-167.
I was probably mousing around in the databases most days of the week during the year, and not just the academic year, for my own research, and for my classes which often involved teaching students how to navigate the bewildering maze of subscription databases as well as the difference between that content — which, yes, is accessed via the internet — and the online sources that a general Google search will provide (although as more and more open-access peer-reviewed journals became available, it was no longer possible to say that the only way to find peer-reviewed scholarship was in the databases).
While the MLA Index is always the first place to start for a literary project, Tolkien studies has become multi-disciplinary (another possible difference between the field and Lewis studies?), and the MLA, as large as it is, focuses primarily on scholarship published in the disciplines of literature, rhetoric, linguistics, languages, and some cultural studies. A thorough bibliographic search would include searching in Academic Search Complete (ASC) which draws from a wider range of humanities disciplines as well as social sciences and probably some sciences. The problems of locking up tax-payer funded research (the work done by scholars at public colleges and universities) from public access is one that is increasingly being acknowledged, and it’s a problem that independent scholars struggle with.
There were also people who loved the films but had not read the books, and some of them disliked the books when they tried to read them. Fan studies scholars look at what is often called "anti-fandom" (fans who love to hate something and express that hatred in commentary and discussion rather than simply ignoring the object of their anti-fandom).
I also dragged all my friends/colleagues who did not run away fast enough to see it with me, and cornered the film scholar in my department to get recommendations for what to read about film theory and adaptation theory in order to write essays on the film! Which I loved!
I was a bit confused myself, or perhaps astonished would be a better word for it, at nearly fifty years of age to be re-finding that old passion with entirely different perspectives on what I read. But it was incredibly fun and energizing and, well, fun, and having so much fun while being paid for it got me through some tough years of my professional life (“tough” because of the changing corporate culture of universities, which is a global problem, and also tough because of being a queer feminist atheist autist in rural Texas).
The one time I took sort of a medieval class in college, an undergraduate course on Chaucer, I ran away in horror at having to deal even with MIDDLE English! Plus, I have to admit, the professor teaching it was not a particularly good ambassador for the Middle Ages. On the other hand, I used to hang out with the medievalists in my literature programs because unlike the modernists and postmodernists, quite a few medievalists read and liked science fiction and fantasy.
And keep in mind that “medieval” scholarship has changed over the decades: for instance, there’s been a significant growth in Queer Medievalisms and feminist work on gender and sexuality not to mention the medievalists of color who are challenging the fascist fantasy of a pure white European Middle Ages!
Medievalists are always welcome to present on Tolkien at PCA, and a few have, especially since the Kalamazoo conference seems to be limiting the number of sessions that can be scheduled in any one area.
See Joanna Russ’ brilliant and still fucking timely book, How to Suppress Women's Writing, which is just one of the books she wrote that changed my life. I consider Tolkien and Russ to be the two writers whose works are most responsible for shaping my life, a pairing that seems to confuse many people who hold the stereotype that “feminists hate Tolkien.” Russ is one of the reasons I became a fan of feminist sff!
I was amazed when Leslie Donovan sold them the idea of a collection on Teaching Tolkien .
Most academic organizations have a national organization as well as maintaining affiliations with regional organizations that also publish journals and run conferences. Those regional conferences can have different cultures and goals than the national organization: see this page for information on the regional PCA conferences. The regionals are usually less expensive to attend and can be easier for scholars living in the geographic region to attend.