TOLKIEN AND THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE DISCUSSION
7pm (BST), Thursday 1 September
To mark the release of Amazon’s big budget new series, Rings of Power, HistFest has assembled an expert panel to explore the history, influence, and legacy of JRR Tolkien’s bestselling trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. From medieval history, Icelandic Sagas and Norse Mythology to gaming and cosplay, we’ll take a holistic look at the many influences feeding into and out of the works. We’ll also unravel the pseudo-historical cultures and settings found in Tolkien’s world, unpack concepts of race within the books and onscreen, analyze the limited role women play, discuss the challenges and opportunities with the genre of fantasy fiction and look ahead to the new series: What do we think of the trailers so far? What material does the series appear to be drawing from? What do we expect to see? Which characters / storylines are we most intrigued about?
Join us, for unique opportunity to go ‘full geek’ as we investigate JRR Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings.
*Please note, this is an online event. Ticket holders will have access for 7 days*
About the speakers…
Lev Mirov is a PhD student at Union Institute and University studying race, colonialism, and the long life of Lord of the Rings on the cultural imagination. A closet medievalist, previous degrees from Goddard College focused on 12th century gender and power, folk magic and religion, and an MFA of interdisciplinary arts exploring fantasy, disability and race in ballet, choreography, and composing on the oud. Lev’s other life is as an award nominated speculative poet and short story writer, with forthcoming fantasy and alternate history novels cowritten with fellow historian and spouse Aleksei Moniz Mirov. If tripped through a portal into Middle-earth by adventure-pushing wizards, Lev would want to travel to Harad and Umbar and bring back a map and a diary.
Adam Bierstedt (he/him) has an MA in Viking and Medieval Norse studies from the University of Iceland and is currently studying Cultural Heritage at Simmons University. His research interests include environmental history, the Norse sagas, and the reception of the Vikings in modern media and fantasy. He is also the creator of Ludohistory, a public outreach project on Twitch.tv that discusses the representation of the past in games and other media through livestreams and video essays.
Sarah-Nelle Jackson (she/her) is a PhD candidate in English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver). There, she reads late medieval narratives about governance, sovereignty, and the environment to explore how medieval English writers understood their relationship to the more-than-human world. As a UBC Public Scholar, Sarah-Nelle is also building an interview-based public scholarship resource that combines expert commentary, myth-busting, and neomedieval games.
Mary Rambaran-Olm is a literary historian who specializes in the literature, language, culture, and history of pre-conquest England. Her current research focuses on race in the early medieval period and medieval misappropriation. She has published widely in NLH, postmedieval, Notes & Queries, English Studies, Digital Medievalist, as well as in a number of compilations. As a public literary historian her work has been featured in Public Books, TIME, Smithsonian, History Workshop Online, and elsewhere. Her second book co-written with Dr. Erik Wade is Race in Early Medieval England (CUP: 2023). She spends extra time helping burn down her field.