CONGRESS CANCELED Medieval World-Building: Tolkien, His Precursors and Legacies
Description
"Medieval World-Building: Tolkien, His Precursors and Legacies"-- This paper session engages with Tolkien’s lifelong world-building project, Middle-earth, as well as its medieval precursors in Robin Hood and the Greenwood, and the Vikings in early America, and its modern legacy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The recent volume Sub-creating Arda: World-building in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Works, its Precursors, and Legacies (2019), edited by D. Fimi and T. Honegger, examines the importance of invented story-worlds as spaces for primary-world social commentary, or as means for visualizing times and places not accessible to the reader. Tolkien was one of the foremost proponents of literary world-building, what he called “sub-creation.” His Middle-earth has had unrivaled influence on subsequent world-building efforts. Yet, Tolkien’s own sub-creations were born from medieval story-worlds such as Beowulf, Kalevala, Volsungasaga, and others. This session offers papers from multiple theoretical perspectives on the emergent, interdisciplinary field of World-Building. -- Dr. Dimitra Fimi and Kristine A Swank, University of Glasgow, organizers.
CONGRESS CANCELED Medieval World-Building: Tolkien, His Precursors and Legacies
Bernhard 209
"Medieval World-Building: Tolkien, His Precursors and Legacies"-- This paper session engages with Tolkien’s lifelong world-building project, Middle-earth, as well as its medieval precursors in Robin Hood and the Greenwood, and the Vikings in early America, and its modern legacy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The recent volume Sub-creating Arda: World-building in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Works, its Precursors, and Legacies (2019), edited by D. Fimi and T. Honegger, examines the importance of invented story-worlds as spaces for primary-world social commentary, or as means for visualizing times and places not accessible to the reader. Tolkien was one of the foremost proponents of literary world-building, what he called “sub-creation.” His Middle-earth has had unrivaled influence on subsequent world-building efforts. Yet, Tolkien’s own sub-creations were born from medieval story-worlds such as Beowulf, Kalevala, Volsungasaga, and others. This session offers papers from multiple theoretical perspectives on the emergent, interdisciplinary field of World-Building. -- Dr. Dimitra Fimi and Kristine A Swank, University of Glasgow, organizers.