The Tolkien Middle Age Club

[Brinniel]

I know I'm not a great conversation starter, but in an attempt to revive this thread, I'm going to find a new topic to discuss...

Okay, a lot of us in this group are students at a university or college. I'm curious...have any of you been in a class where one day the professor starts discussing or mentioning Tolkien, his books, or perhaps even just the films? Or maybe you've actually had a class on Tolkien or were required to read one of his books or essays...something like that. If you have, tell us about it!

I'll start off:

Last semester, I took a class called Making Monsters, where we studied different monsters from film and literature. One of the first things we had to read was Beowulf, and along with that, Tolkien's "The Monster and Its Critics." Imagine my excitement when I found out I was required to read Tolkien. Tolkien's essay was the main topic for multiple days, and it later became one of the main essays we based our arguments on. Later into the semester, Gollum was mentioned, and I also think my professor briefly talked about LotR and the importance of the roles the monsters have...something like that.

For my class Foundations of Visual and Media Arts, my professor often mentioned LotR as the perfect example of certain aspects of filmmaking, particularly when it came to the storytelling.

Anyone else have similar experiences to share?