Michael D. C. Drout
Autor von Rings, Swords, and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature
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The Modern Scholar: From Here to Infinity ~An Exploration of Science Fiction Literature~ (14 Lectures on 7… (2006) 43 Exemplare
The Modern Scholar: Tolkien and the West: Recovering the Lost Tradition of Europe (0006) 21 Exemplare
How Tradition Works: A Meme-Based Cultural Poetics of the Anglo-Saxon Tenth Century (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and… (2006) 13 Exemplare
Tolkien Studies, Volume XII — Herausgeber — 6 Exemplare
Tolkien Studies, Volume XVI 6 Exemplare
Tolkien Studies, Volume XVII 6 Exemplare
Tolkien Studies, Volume XIV 5 Exemplare
Tolkien Studies, Volume XV 5 Exemplare
Tolkien Studies, Volume XIII — Herausgeber — 5 Exemplare
Tolkien Studies, Volume XVIII 3 Exemplare
Tolkien studies: volume XIX, supplement — Herausgeber — 3 Exemplare
Tolkien Studies : Volume XIX 2 Exemplare
The Anglo-Saxon World 🎧 ✓ (SERIES: THE ANGLO-SAXON WORLD: LECTURE 002 OF 014: LANGUAGE AND CULTURE)… 1 Exemplar
Beowulf Unlocked 1 Exemplar
Zugehörige Werke
The Lord of the Rings 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder (2006) — Mitwirkender — 35 Exemplare
Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's the Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy (2011) — Mitwirkender — 29 Exemplare
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- 1968-05-03
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- male
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- USA
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- Carnegie Mellon University (BA)
Stanford University (MA|1991)
University of Missouri (MA|1993)
Loyola University Chicago (PhD|1997) - Berufe
- Professor of English
literary critic - Organisationen
- Wheaton College
Tolkien Studies
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This book is an altogether different kettle of footnotes. Exceptionally large (more than 700 eight and a half by eleven pages) and with a high-powered editorial board (including Tom Shippey, the greatest Tolkien expert of all time, and three other big names, Douglas A. Anderson, Marjorie Burns, and Verlyn Flieger), it covers Tolkien's writings, his life, his family and much of the material he published or studied in his academic career. It is intended as both a scholarly reference and as a readable general reference. It doesn't include every name and event in Tolkien's major works on Middle-Earth, as Foster's book does, but it covers all the major themes, and it also gives the context of Tolkien's life. Along with references to items used to compile the entries. More than one hundred scholars contributed articles, and all articles are signed by their authors (though there is no index of articles by each author, which I would have liked).
It is, without question, the most extensive and authoritative Tolkien reference now available, and probably always will be.
And I still have to urge some caution with it. I can't help but think that editor Drout and his board assigned the various articles to the numerous contributors -- and then paid no attention to what they submitted. I won't cite examples, but the number of sloppy items (numbers that don't add up, places where the text has become garbled) is significant -- not a huge number, but enough to make you really wonder what is going on. Didn't anyone read these things?
And while most of the articles, and most of the contributors, are distinguished, there are some of each that really should not have been accepted. To pick on just one particular author, Bradley J. Birzer is the author of a book that approves of Andrew Jackson. As in, the American president who committed genocide. Yes, Tolkien was a political reactionary -- but not a fundamentalist, and definitely not a racist; there is no meeting of minds there. As I was reading one of Birzer's articles, I started feeling as if I were sinking into slime -- and then I saw who wrote it, and understood. Birzer is the worst, but there are a few others who, I think, just don't "get it."
Also, some early Tolkien criticism was Freudian, and this early criticism created (e.g.) an idea that Shelob was a threatening mother-image, which is why she was larger than her mates. Ahem, people: very many spider species feature females that are much larger than their males, and who eat the males. Tolkien -- who was very knowledgeable about botany and zoology -- was not producing a Freudian image, he was following actual biology! The Shelob thing needs to be dropped right now -- psychology has realized that Freud was absolutely wrong, so why can't Tolkien studies?
So between the lack of editing and the inclusion of "scholars" who aren't really scholars, there are a few bad articles in here. How many? It's a small minority. If you want to do Tolkien research, this is a great place to start. But don't trust it absolutely; if you're going to cite it, be sure to check the original source first. That, plus, keep in mind that, if it looks ridiculous, it probably is ridiculous.… (mehr)