ENGLIT 1009 - J.R.R. TOLKIEN AND COUNTERCULTURE

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
This course studies the persona, work, and critical and popular reception of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) from his initial publication of The Hobbit in 1937 through today. In the 1960s and '70s, people were scribbling "Frodo Lives" on subway walls and getting married dressed like Aragorn and Arwen. Less than half a century later, The Lord of the Rings repeatedly beat out the Bible as "best-loved" book in British polls, and Peter Jackson's adaptations made history both for their box-office earnings and for their groundbreaking contributions to film-making. Widely recognized as the father of modern fantasy and touted as the "Author of the [Twentieth] Century" by scholars, Tolkien continues to exert a panoramic influence on culture, particularly in his ability to speak to and for the marginalized. From Comic Con to Elder Scrolls to Game of Thrones, his sub-creation of Middle-earth embodies and fuels "nerd" culture now just as it did for the hippies of the previous century. Yet, Tolkien " war veteran, Oxford professor of Medieval languages and literature, devout Catholic " was a man of his time and quite conservative, at least publicly. While he famously said that his wife "should be satisfied by devotion to her children" and not "enter the intellectual side of life," the female characters in his stories, while small in number, are arguably great in power, assertiveness, and heroism. Tolkien's writing argues for the importance of a community where all cultures coexist: Elves, Dwarfs, Men, Hobbits go to war against Sauron and the "One Ring" designed to "rule them all." In this course we will read Tolkien's major works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in their entirety, as well as excerpts from what he considered to be his master work, The Silmarillion. We will explore Tolkien materials housed in Special Collections at Hillman Library and online. Our reading list will include reviews and scholarship on Tolkien's life and work, as well as on the ways in which his mythology continues to resonate and be reimagined in the twenty-first century. Ultimately, we will analyze the relationship between Tolkien and the counterculture as a way of understanding the ways in which myth, fantasy, and literature more broadly represent, shape, and interrogate complex social and political systems.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis
Course Requirements: ENG 0102 or ENGCMP (0002 or 0006 or 0020 or 0200 or 0203 or 0205 or 0207 or 0208 or 0210 or 0212 or 0213 or 0214) or ENGFLM 0210 or FP (0003 or 0006) or (ENGR 0012 or 0712 or 0715 or 0716 or 0718)
Course Attributes: DSAS Literature General Ed. Requirement, SCI Polymathic Contexts: Humanistic GE. Req.

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