Some History and a Question.....

[Child of the 7th Age]

Although many U.S. colleges now offer courses on Tolkien, it wasn’t always that way. Bear with me on a trip down memory lane.

Years ago, you could only find research collections and/or classes at a few schools with Christian ties, including interdenominational Wheaton College in Illinois (Prof. Clyde Kilby) or Catholic Marquette, which had acquired Tolkien’s papers. By the late nineties, a few more professors were working in the field; the best known were Verlyn Flieger - University of Maryland (Her Ph.D. was from Catholic U in 1978) and Tom Shippey who left Leeds to teach at the Jesuit-run St. Louis U..

Over the years, there's been a growing contingent of academic librarians and professors in the U.S. doing research in Tolkien studies. Some of these are well known, others less so, but the numbers are impressive: Richard West (U Wisconsin-Madison), Amy Sturgis (Belmont University), Wayne Hammond (Williams College), Marjorie Burns (Portland State), Jane Chance (Rice University), Neil Isaacs (University of Mississippi), Alfred K. Siewers (Bucknell University), John Rateliffe (Marquette University), Michael Drout (Wheaton College in Mass.), Leslie Donovan (University of New Mexico), David Bratman (Stanford University) as well as independent scholars like Dr. Anne Petty. I could list more, but I don’t want to put you to sleep!

For a long time, the “most selective” schools left Tolkien off their syllabi. (Yale’s Harold Bloom was especially unfriendly.) Now, even this has changed: University of Chicago, Harvard University, and Rice University.

Tolkien is also making an appearance at traditional academic conferences. The International Medieval Congress, a well respected annual session on medieval studies at Western Michigan U, has had as many as three sessions on JRRT.

The question I’m raising is this. Has there been the same expenditure of energy by profs in the UK, and, if not, why? I will admit that the US “kidnapped” T. S. Shippey. Plus, England has always had an amazingly vital Tolkien Society; many dedicated “amateurs” love Middle-earth and turn out wonderful articles and books. In terms of popular culture, there is no other country where Tolkien is so beloved as in England. It's also likely there are university courses being offered in the UK that I am not aware of since I live deep in the backwoods of Texas. Yet, I think I would have caught more names of UK profs on published articles and such, as I do keep an eye on those.

Is this my imagination, or is most of the academic energy in Tolkien studies now coming from the U.S.? I’m not trying to wave a nationalistic flag, and would be happy to be shown that I have overlooked or misjudged something. I am leaving out any consideration of Tolkien studies in Canada or various European countries. since I am woefully ignorant of their contribution.

If my perceptions are accurate, could this be a reflection of the fact that a prophet often fails to receive due respect within his own country? Or is there something about English academics that makes them particularly resistant to Tolkien’s charm, despite the outpouring of love from the rest of their countrymen? Can anyone help or explain?