June Update

Hello friends!

I thought it was time for a wee update here – I've not been able to do as much blogging as I wanted, but for very good reasons! Alongside my MSc project, which is going in earnest, I've been busy with Tolkien-related scholarly things.

Firstly, after two years of work with my lovely friend and kick-ass scholar Clare Moore, our co-edited special issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research on asexual readings of Tolkien's legendarium is available now, open access at this link! We're thrilled with the outcome, our authors have been incredible, and Brad at JTR has been super helpful guiding us through our first co-editing experience. It's also my first experience of peer review as an author, so it's extra special in a bunch of ways!

Secondly, I'm currently working on my presentation for the Leeds Mediaeval Congress in July, a sort-of encore of my visual ecologies work that I presented at Oxonmoot a couple of years ago but with more theory! I'm diving deep into adaptation theory and ecocriticism to talk about what happens when you get Aotearoa to play Middle-earth, which is sort-of the UK in costume.

Finally, I submitted an abstract for the German Tolkien Society seminar this October, again building on previously-presented research. Their theme this year is "Environment, the World around us, and the Connatural World in Tolkien’s Works", and I thought it would be a great opportunity to expand my paper from Oxonmoot 2022 about botanical colonialism in Middle-earth. Botanical colonialism in our world is one of my favourite special interests, and I love exploring how it shows up in fantasy literature, where all choices are open and the author can construct their world however they like. Whether I get to present in October or not, I've been wanting to expand this paper, possibly for peer review, since I presented it, so this was a great kick in the pants to get started on that!

The blogging is still waiting for me to have enough time and energy (preferably at the same time!) amongst everything else – disability is really rather inconsiderate about such things. But it's still mulling away in the back of my head, so when the moment comes, it should be fun!

I hope you enjoy reading some of the journal articles in the special issue, and please feel free to share them with anyone you think might enjoy them!