Tolkien and Alterity

Christopher Vaccaro · Yvette Kisor

10/2017 · Springer

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This exciting collection of essays explores the role of the Other in Tolkien’s fiction, his life, and the pertinent criticism. It critically examines issues of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, language, and identity in The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and lesser-known works by Tolkien. The chapters consider characters such as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, Saruman, Éowyn, and the Orcs as well as discussions of how language and identity function in the source texts. The analysis of Tolkien’s work is set against an examination of his life, personal writing, and beliefs. Each essay takes as its central position the idea that how Tolkien responds to that which is different, to that which is “Other,” serves as a register of his ethics and moral philosophy. In the aggregate, they provide evidence of Tolkien’s acceptance of alterity.

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Christopher Vaccaro is Senior Lecturer at the University of Vermont, where he teaches on Beowulf, Tolkien, Old English language and literature, British literature surveys, and gender/sexuality studies. He has published in the Tolkien-specific journal Mallorn, is the editor of the collection The Body in Tolkien’s Legendarium (2013) and is currently working on a book-length project on Beowulf.

Yvette Kisor is Professor of Literature at Ramapo College, where she teaches courses in medieval literature, early British literature, the history of the English language, and Tolkien. Her Tolkien publications appear in Mythlore and Tolkien Studies, The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment, and MLA Approaches to Teaching: J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Other Works, among others. Her most recent publication is a co-authored book with Michael D.C. Drout et al, Beowulf Unlocked: New Evidence from Lexomic Analysis (Palgrave Macmillan 2016).