Blog – Page 5

Tolkien Sessions at IMC Leeds, July 2018

I am very pleased to announce that all six sessions on J.R.R. Tolkien I proposed for the International Medieval Congress at Leeds 2018 have been accepted! This will be the fourth consecutive year of papers on J.R.R. Tolkien at IMC…

By Dimitra Fimi | 30th November 2017 | Uncategorized | No Comments |

Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy announced as runner-up for Katharine Briggs Folklore Award

Last Wednesday I traveled to London for the Katharine Briggs Lecture 2017, and the announcement of the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award. My new monograph, Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children’s Fantasy, had been shortlisted for this prestigious international award, previously won…

By Dimitra Fimi | 12th November 2017 | Uncategorized | No Comments |

Philip Pullman in Cardiff: La Belle Sauvage, Lyra’s world, and the writer’s craft

This afternoon I was fortunate to attend a brilliant event organised by Waterstones and Literature Wales. Following the publication of La Belle Sauvage on Thursday, Philip Pullman visited Cardiff to talk about the new book and his creative process more…

By Dimitra Fimi | 22nd October 2017 | Uncategorized | No Comments |

CFP: The Celtic Obsession in Modern Fantasy

CFP: The Celtic Obsession in Modern Fantasy You are invited to submit a paper for an edited volume tentatively titled The Celtic Obsession in Modern Fantasy Literature to be submitted to Palgrave Macmillan. Scholarship on Celtic-inspired fantasy literature has…

By Dimitra Fimi | 12th October 2017 | Uncategorized | No Comments |

The value of English literature at GCSE (really? do we even need to argue this?)

Last week, Owen Sheers rightly drew attention to the perilous consequences of removing English Literature as a core subject from GSCE requirements in Wales: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-41043551 I was asked to share my two penneth in a BBC Radio interview for Good Evening…

By Dimitra Fimi | 30th August 2017 | Uncategorized | No Comments |

Alan Garner’s The Owl Service has its 50th anniversary today!

One of the books I’ve worked with very closely during the last few years is Alan Garner’s The Owl Service. Garner’s creative re-use of the tale of Lleu, Blodeuwedd, and Gronw from the Welsh Mabinogion made it a prime candidate…

By Dimitra Fimi | 21st August 2017 | Academic Teaching, Alan Garner, Books, Celtic Myth, Children's Fantasy, Children's Literature, Fantasy Literature, Myth and Folklore, Welsh myth an folklore | No Comments |

A Medieval Greek Arthurian Poem: The Old Knight

I’m in Greece right now, enjoying the sea, and pistachios (my parents have pistachio trees in their orchard), and watermelon, and figs, and all the lovely summer things. And I thought this would be a good moment to share a…

By Dimitra Fimi | 13th August 2017 | Uncategorized | No Comments |

George MacDonald and one of Tolkien’s most quotable lines

I’ve been re-reading many of the works of George MacDonald recently, in preparation for my keynote lecture at the George MacDonald’s Scotland conference at the University of Aberdeen next week (https://gmdscotland.wordpress.com/). My lecture is titled “George MacDonald and Celticity”, and…

By Dimitra Fimi | 9th July 2017 | Books, Conferences, Fantasy Literature, Tolkien | No Comments |

Beren and Lúthien: Some First Thoughts (and radio interview)

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beren and Lúthien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, was published yesterday. The book is an attempt by Christopher Tolkien to extract one of the most beautiful, moving, and personal stories of his father’s ‘legendarium’ into a standalone book, allowing the…

By Dimitra Fimi | 2nd June 2017 | Books, Fantasy Literature, Folklore, Interviews, Media, Myth and Folklore, Tolkien, Worldbuilding | No Comments |

Tolkien and the Art of Book Reviewing: A Circuitous Road to Middle-earth

The Tolkien Society has just uploaded on YouTube my talk for Oxonmoot 2016, titled: “Tolkien and the Art of Book Reviewing: A Circuitous Road to Middle-earth”. I thought, therefore, that it would be a good idea to publish the text of…

By Dimitra Fimi | 17th May 2017 | Books, Fantasy Literature, Public Lecture, Tolkien | No Comments |