Tolkien Studies

Chiara Bertoglio (b. 1983, Turin) is an Italian musician, musicologist, and theologian. Several of her published books and articles focus on the relationship between music and theology, including Reforming Music (De Gruyter, 2017), a monograph on music and the sixteenth-century Reformations. In the field of Tolkien criticism her studies focus on the "Ainulindalë" and its theological meaning, also in dialogue with Dante's Commedia: some of her articles on this topic are scheduled for publication in the forthcoming essay collections Music in Tolkien's Work and Beyond (Walking Tree) and Tolkien e i classici 2 (Effatà). Her website is www.chiarabertoglio.com.

David Bratman is co-editor of Tolkien Studies.

Jane Chance is the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor Emerita in English at Rice University and a recipient of an honorary doctorate of letters from Purdue University (2013), along with a Guggenheim Fellowship and membership in the Institute for Advanced Study-Princeton. She has published twenty-five books and over a hundred articles and reviews on Old and Middle English literature, medieval women, mythography, and medievalism—in particular, Tolkien's. Among her books are Tolkien's Art: A 'Mythography for England'" (St. Martin's, 1979; rpt. UP of Kentucky, 2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Mythology of Power (Twayne, 1992; rpt. UP of Kentucky, 2001) and edited collections Tolkien the Medievalist (Routledge, 2003), Tolkien and the Invention of Myth (UP of Kentucky, 2004), the coedited Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), and a guest-edited issue of Studies in Medievalism on the Inklings and Others (1991). In 2016 she published Tolkien, Self and Other: "This Queer Creature" (Palgrave Macmillan) and was asked to deliver the Medieval Academy Annual Plenary Lecture at the annual international conference on the Middle Ages at Western Michigan University, which she gave on Tolkien's view of Grendel's Mother in Beowulf. Her original article on Grendel's Mother in Tolkien's Beowulf article (1980) has been printed seven times, notably in her book Woman as Hero in Old English Literature (Syracuse UP, 1986; rpt. Wipf & Stock, 2005). She has also appeared in two documentary films, National Geographic: Beyond the Movie, "The Lord of the Rings and Ringers: Lord of the Fans, and founded the symposium "Tolkien at Kalamazoo," which meets annually at Western Michigan University. Tolkien and Alterity, edited by Yvette Kisor and Christopher Vaccaro, was published in her honor in 2017 by Palgrave Macmillan.

Janet Brennan Croft is Head of Access and Delivery Services at Rutgers University libraries. She is the author of War in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (Praeger, 2004), winner of the Mythopoeic Society Award for Inklings Studies, and several book chapters on the Peter Jackson films; has published articles on Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Lois McMaster Bujold, and other authors, and is editor or co-editor of many collections of literary essays, the latest being Baptism of Fire: The Birth of British Fantasy in World War I (Mythopoeic Press, 2016). She is currently co-editing collections on the TV series Orphan Black and on Tolkien and World War I. Croft edits the refereed scholarly journal Mythlore and serves on the board of the Mythopoeic Press.

Robert D. Denham is John P. Fishwick Professor of English Emeritus at Roanoke College. Prior to that he taught at Emory & Henry College. From 1986 to 1988 he served as Director of English Programs and Director of the Association of Departments of English for the Modern Language Association in New York City. He has devoted much of his professional life to the criticism of Northrop Frye, having written or edited more than 30 volumes about and by Frye.

Nicole DuPlessis has a Ph.D. in English from Texas A&M University, where she has held positions including Lecturer of English and technology trainer for university employees. Her most recent publication is "To Grow Together, or To Grow Apart: The Long Sorrow of the Ents and Marriage in The Lord of the Rings" in Mythlore 35.2 (2017). She is working on a book-length consideration of marriage in Middle...