Tolkien Chats

When given the opportunity, the Tolkien Professor loves to sit down and discuss Tolkien with students, friends, and fellow scholars. There are so many different topics to explore and so many interesting questions to try to answer!

Listed here are recordings from several of these chats. In each discussion session, the topic was mutually decided upon in advance, and then the conversation continued from there onward.

The first few recordings are of conversations with Corey Olsen’s former students who took his Tolkien course at Washington College. Following these, there are also recordings of conversations with world-famous Tolkien scholars and colleagues in the field of Tolkien research. Stay tuned for much more!

  1. Ben Kozlowski, On Knowledge and Evil (September 13, 2009)
  2. Tara Holste, On Masters and Servants (October 1, 2009)
  3. Liz Bateman, On Tragedy and Sorrow (May 14, 2010)
  4. Professor Michael Drout, On Metafiction and Philology (May 21, 2010)
  5. KMO of the C-Realm Podcast, On the Silmarillion (May 24, 2010)
  6. Scott Holbrook-Foust and Eric Singletary, On Written and Oral Cultures (June 23, 2010)
  7. Tara Holste II, On Government (November 24, 2010)
  8. Allison Fischbach, On Mortality (January 1, 2011)
  9. David Perlmutter, On War (October 7, 2011)
  10. In the Bar at Mythcon 2011, with Paula DiSanto and the Silmarillionaires (October 25, 2011)
  11. Trish Lambert, The Princess and the Goblin (August 20, 2012)
  12. Adaptation and the Hobbit Movies (January 5 2013)
  13. In the Bar at Mythcon 2013, with the Mythgardians (July 21, 2013)
  14. A chat with Bernd Greisinger, of the newly opened (September 30, 2013)
  15. Ethan Gilsdorf and Noble Smith, On Geekdom (October 7, 2013)
  16. Reactions to the Desolation of Smaug-Part 1 (December 23 2013)
  17. Reactions to the Desolation of Smaug-Part 2 (December 23 2013)
  18. Comments on the Release of Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf (May 2014)
  19. Mythgard at Mythcon 2014: Professor Olsen and a record number of Mythgard students and special guests talk fantasy (August 2014)

Tolkien Professor Chat at Mythcon 2014