The Tolkien Professor, Dr. Corey Olsen

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has just released the full dust jacket design for Dr. Olsen’s Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.  Get a jump on the September release date and view the full treatment – including blurbs from Tolkien scholars like John D. Rateliff, Michael Drout and Mythgard’s own Veryln Flieger.

To learn even more about Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, visit Mythgard’s Exclusives section where there is a whole page dedicated to this exciting book.

Greetings!  A quick note here to let you know that The Tolkien Professor’s short course on The Fellowship of The Ring, “The Lord of The Rings I” has wrapped up at Mythgard Academy – and the recordings are available for purchase now as a Course Pack!  If you missed the class, you can now get all six lectures for just $45 at shop.signumuniversity.org.  And through July 31st, the Mythgard birthday discount will still take 5% off – just type in code “BIRTHDAY” during check out!

This Fall, The Tolkien Professor will be offering The Story of The Hobbit at Mythgard Institute!

This course will examine the life of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.  We will examine several important precursors of the book, works that helped establish the genre in which Tolkien was writing, or which influenced Tolkien’s own thinking.  We will then read not the final published version of The Hobbit, but the growth of the story in manuscript and typescript, examining carefully how the story developed and in what directions.  We will then turn to the publication and reception ofThe Hobbit, including its adaptation to film.  We’ll end the semester with a discussion of the Rankin-Bass animated Hobbit and, after a brief delay, a discussion of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Professor Olsen will be joined in this class by two distinguished guest lecturers: John D. Rateliff, author of The History ofThe Hobbit, and Douglas A. Anderson, author of The Annotated Hobbit, two of the foremost scholars on The Hobbit in the world.

Learn more about The Story of The Hobbit at Mythgard Institute – and enroll today!

Good news for those of us waiting ever so patiently until the September release of “The Tolkien Professor” Dr. Corey Olsen’s new book, Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit!

Word from Professor Olsen himself is that blurbs from his fellow Tolkien scholars are coming in now and that the first review, courtesy of Publishers Weekly, is out.  Publishersweekly.com notes that fans of The Tolkien Professor site and podcasts “will be pleased to discover Olsen narrowing his focus here to The Hobbit…” and proclaims it a “work of love backed up by professional experience, this book is packed with information; the author’s infectious enthusiasm pervades his words, ensuring that what could have been a dry work in other hands will retain even a casual reader’s interest.”

Read the full Review here: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-547-73946-5

To keep up to date on Reviews and news about Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, visit our Exploring press page: http://www.mythgard.org/exclusives/exploring-the-hobbit/press

You can pre-order copies of Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit on Amazon.com, and signed copies are available by contacting Shannon Wyble at [email protected].  International shipping available; credit card orders only, please.

And of course you can visit The Tolkien Professor website (http://tolkienprofessor.com) to listen to podcasts and learn more about his other endeavors, Signum University and The Mythgard Institute.

Faerie and Fantasy 29 is available for immediate download here or check it out on iTunes. The heated discussion of the C.S. Lewis classic, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” continues with chapters 7-11.

The third week of discussion of Chapter 19 of The Silmarilion “Of Beren and Luthien” is now available. Be sure to listen to the very end to hear Dave Kale’s special announcement! You can find the file here and on iTunes.

Looking for a short course on Tolkien this Summer?  Mythgard’s got just the thing for you!  For only $90, students who want to participate in this Summer’s Mythgard Academy course, “The Lord of the Rings I: The Road Goes Ever On” can sign up to audit.  The course will be taught by Dr. Corey Olsen and will cover The Fellowship of the Ring in detail! Auditing will give you access to all six live class sessions as well as the recordings of each so you can listen on your own schedule.

And for those of you who want to get practice with college writing, Mythgard Academy is also offering the courses with individual writing tutors for just $160.  There’s even a Harry Potter course if you want to branch out into new worlds!

The Tolkien course kicks off on July 9 and registration closes in the first week of July so visit Mythgard Academy to learn more and sign up!

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Tolkien’s American publishers, are starting to gear up for the 75th Anniversary celebration of The Hobbit, and they are providing a glimpse into my book as part of the fun!  You can check out the excerpt from my book here (http://www.mythgard.org/exclusives/book-excerpt/) and head over to Houghton Mifflin’s new Hobbit Facebook app (http://apps.facebook.com/readthehobbit/Home).  They’ve just started up that app, and I’ll be working with them on more content in the next few months.  If you have suggestions for something you’d like to see, let me know!

Professor Olsen wraps up “Smith of Wooten Major”, and his students propose a controversial new interpretation of the text. Find the file here, or listen on The Tolkien Professor’s feed on iTunes.

Faerie and Fantasy 26 is available! This time Dr. Olsen tackles J.R.R Tolkien’s “Smith of Wootton Major” and takes a look at the realm of Faerie. Find it and all the episodes of the Faerie and Fantasy class here, or listen on iTunes.