News archive
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20th August 2026: Environmentalism in Tolkien's Middle-earth published
Environmentalism in Tolkien's Middle-earth brings together ten essays exploring Tolkien as a proto-environmentalist and deep ecologist before the term existed. From the tree-herding Ents of Fangorn to the maternal nature goddesses of The Silmarillion, from the ethical mining of Erebor to the corrupted wasteland of Mordor, the contributors reveal how Tolkien's legendarium presents a morally charged vision of humanity's relationship with the natural world. Drawing on ecocriticism, Jungian psychology, postcolonial theory, and deep ecology, the volume traces an evolution in Tolkien's ecological imagination across his entire body of work.
table of contents | abstracts | cover | announcements | more
(to link to this announcement: http://www.walking-tree.org/news_archive.php?item=266 )
19th August 2026: Tolkien Conference Switzerland 2027
The Third Tolkien Conference Switzerland, organized by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, University of Lausanne, and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, will take place on Saturday, March 13, 2027, at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in beautiful Lucerne, Switzerland.
The topic is Maps and Landscapes in Tolkien's Middle-earth. The conference is supported by Walking Tree Publishers.
More information on tolkien-tagung.ch
(to link to this announcement: http://www.walking-tree.org/conference/27_lucerne.php )
19th August 2026: Tolkien Seminar 2026
The 2026 Tolkien Seminar, organised by DTG and with the support of Walking Tree Publishers, will be held in Augsburg from 16th to 18th October 2026. The topic is Environment, Ecosphere, Community: Tolkien and Enworldment.
More information on page of DTG
(to link to this announcement: http://www.walking-tree.org/conference/26_augsburg.php )
19th August 2026: JTR reviews Arda Notebooks
A review by Andrew Higgins of Arda Notebooks,The Best of I Quaderni di Arda was published in the Journal of Tolkien Research Vol. 24: Iss. 2 (2026).
The review can be read here (on website of Journal of Tolkien Research).
(to link to this announcement: http://www.walking-tree.org/news_archive.php?item=263 )
28th June 2026: Tolkien - History Meets Legend
Tolkien - History Meets Legend, essays by Nancy Bunting, is now published.
"Legend and History have met and fused" (OFS 156)
These essays deal with how Tolkien excavated the mother lode of his own history to create legends. This strategy can be seen in his use of S.R. Crockett's The Black Douglas and his late essay, "Aldarion and Erendis." This biographical approach appears at the start of The Lord of the Rings in the Bombadil chapters, and in his intimate portrait of Faramir, the character whom Tolkien wrote is "like me."
The main essay reviews the inferred traumatic events of March 1904, when food and water ran low and the isolated, housebound Mabel Tolkien was challenged by caring for two sick boys. Already in the late stages of diabetes, Mabel Tolkien faced only three possible medical outcomes: death, coma, or psychosis. In March 1904, the first two did not occur. The logically reconstructed events of March 1904 aim to reveal Tolkien's own History which "resembles 'Myth', because they are both ultimately of the same stuff ." Tolkien's story finds its eucatastrophe in "the sudden miraculous experience of Fr. Francis love and care and humour" which allowed an escape from "hunger, thirst, poverty, pain, sorrow, injustice, death," all parts of the trauma of 1904.
table of contents | cover | announcements | more
(to link to this announcement: http://www.walking-tree.org/news_archive.php?item=262 )
28th June 2026: A Real Taste for Fairy-Stories shortlisted for award
A Real Taste for Fairy-Stories has been shortlisted for the 2026 Mythopoeic Awards.
More information here (from the website of the Mythopoeic Society).
(to link to this announcement: http://www.walking-tree.org/news_archive.php?item=261 )
28th June 2026: Review of Arda Notebooks
A review by Nancy Bunting of Arda Notebooks,The Best of I Quaderni di Arda was published in Beyond Bree May 2026.
The review can be read here (pdf).
(to link to this announcement: http://www.walking-tree.org/news_archive.php?item=260 )
27th April 2026: A Real Taste for Fairy-stories reviewed in Mythlore
A review by Douglas C. Kane of A Real Taste for Fairy-stories was published in Mythlore Vol. 44, No. 2, Article 19.
The review can be read here (pdf) on the website of Mythlore.
(to link to this announcement: http://www.walking-tree.org/news_archive.php?item=259 )
5th April 2026: Tolkien among the Theologians shortlisted for Tolkien Society Award 2026
Tolkien among the Theologians (edited by Austin M. Freeman) has been shortlisted for a Tolkien Society Awards in the "Best Book 2026" category.
You can see this and the other nominated books, and vote for your choice on this page of The Tolkien Society (only TS members can vote, login required to open page). Voting closes on Friday 24th April 2026.
(to link to this announcement: http://www.walking-tree.org/news_archive.php?item=258 )
31st March 2026: Liam Campbell Obituary
It is with great regret that we have learnt of the death of Liam Campbell. Campbell authored our 2011 volume, The Ecological Augury in the Works of JRR Tolkien.
An obituary to Liam Campbell was published by Derry Now. He passed away in December 2021.
Campbell's own website is available on liamcampbell.yolasite.com (also archived here: page1, page2, page3).
(to link to this announcement: http://www.walking-tree.org/authors/rip-liam-campbell.php )
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