Botanical Colonialism at the German Tolkien Society Seminar 2026
Having mentioned in my last update that I'd put in an abstract for the German Tolkien Society's seminar in October, I should probably update yous that it got accepted!
If you were at Oxonmoot 2022, you might have been there for my very first ever conference paper, "Columbus in Middle-earth: The Origin Story of Westmansweed". I've been hoping to pick up that research and build on it, not least to redeem myself from the relentless ums and errs in my original presentation. So I thought I'd take the chance to do just that this year! My abstract is below, and draws on both the original paper and some of the questions I got about it on the day.
Working Title: Botanical Colonialism in Tolkien’s World-building
Plants in Tolkien’s world function in multiple ways, not least their interactions with the peoples of Middle-earth and the lands in which they are found. These interactions, as in our world, are shaped by multiple different forces and decisions throughout the history of Middle-earth. Specifically, pipeweed (tobacco), athelas, and mallorn trees are all given detailed stories within Tolkien’s invented world as to their origins, subsequent movements, and significance to those who interact with them. This significance can take multiple forms, and be viewed from multiple perspectives, such as the Herbmaster’s ignorance of the importance of tobacco, or the difference between one of Galadriel’s mellyrn in situ in Lórien and the specimen planted by Sam in Hobbiton.
Using Elizabeth Hoiem’s post-colonial critique from her article “World-building as Colonization” (2005), these stories and significances can be explored in terms of the political forces Tolkien writes into his imagined world. Hoiem argues that Tolkien both partakes in and deconstructs colonial attitudes from our Primary World in his world-building and writing around Númenor in the story of Aldarion and Erendis. This paper will use this model to demonstrate the same juxtaposed approaches in Tolkien’s writing of botanical histories in Middle-earth. Tolkien inverts some stories, such as bringing pipeweed to Middle-earth with the colonising forces of the Númenoreans as opposed to bringing it back from far-off lands, replicates others, such as the relative status of different names for the same plant, and challenges yet more, when Gandalf prioritises Ioreth’s knowledge of kingsfoil in the Houses of Healing.
Through these examples and Hoiem’s model, I will show that botanical and ethnobotanical histories in Tolkien’s invented world are complex and varied and have their roots firmly in examples from the Primary World. For all this similarity, however, Tolkien chooses not merely to replicate these patterns, yielding something altogether more interesting.
Working Bibliography
Ertsgaard, Gabriel. ‘“Leaves of Gold There Grew”: Lothlórien, Postcolonialism, and Ecology’. Representations of Nature in Middle-Earth, edited by Martin Simonson, Walking Tree Publishers, 2015. Cormarë Series, no. 34.
Hazell, Dinah. Plants of Middle-Earth, Botany and Subcreation. Kent State University Press, 2015.
Hoiem, Elizabeth Massa. ‘World Creation as Colonization: British Imperialism in “Aldarion and Erendis”’. Tolkien Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, 2005, pp. 75–92. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1353/tks.2005.0020.
Hynes, Gerard. ‘“The Cedar Is Fallen”: Empire, Deforestation and the Fall of Númenor’. Tolkien: The Forest and the City, edited by Helen Conrad-O’Briain and Gerard Hynes, Four Courts Press, 2013.
Judd, Walter S., and Graham A. Judd. Flora of Middle-Earth: Plants of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium. Oxford University Press, 2017.
It'll be really lovely to have something to focus on after I finish my MSc in September, and I'm excited to see how it all turns out! I've learned a lot since that first paper and it'll be interesting to see how it turns out... In the meantime, I've got my Leeds paper, a proceedings chapter from the Tolkien Society Seminar last year, and a podcast episode on Clare Moore's and my co-edited issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research on asexual and aromantic readings of Tolkien. I'm also putting myself on a paper moratorium until I've actually finished this year's projects as I need a chance to catch up with my own tail, and maybe even write some of these blog posts I've been mulling over in the background.