Janet Brennan Croft | |
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Born | 1961 (age 62–63) |
Academic background | |
Education | Indiana University |
Academic work | |
Main interests | copyright,J. R. R. Tolkien |
Janet Brennan Croft (born 1961) [1] is an American librarian and Tolkien scholar,known for her authored and edited books and journals on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy.
Croft earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Classical Civilization (double major) from Indiana University in 1982 and graduated as a Master of Library Science in 1983 at the Indiana University School of Library and Information. She has worked at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and has been director and associate professor at Warden Memorial Library,Martin Methodist College. She became the Head of Access Services at Bizzell Memorial Library,University of Oklahoma,in 2001 and was given associate professorship in 2007. [2] In September 2014,she started as Head,Access and Delivery Services at Rutgers University Libraries. [3] and as of July 1,2018,her title changed to Liaison to the School of Communication and Information and Librarian for Copyright and Disability Services. In August 2020,she became Associate University Librarian for Content Discovery at the University of Northern Iowa. [4] Her research interests focus on copyright laws concerning libraries and the work of J. R. R. Tolkien and other fantasy authors. This includes several academic lectures on Tolkien that she has held at University of Oklahoma. [5]
Since 2006,she has been the editor of Mythlore ,a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Mythopoeic Society. [6] Among general publications on mythology and fantasy,it focuses on the three most prominent members of the Inklings:J. R. R. Tolkien,C. S. Lewis,and Charles Williams. She is credited as "Tolkien Scholar" in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit:An Unexpected Journey .
Éowyn is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. She is a noblewoman of Rohan who calls herself a shieldmaiden.
Arwen Undómiel is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. She appears in the novel The Lord of the Rings. Arwen is one of the half-elven who lived during the Third Age; her father was Elrond half-elven, lord of the Elvish sanctuary of Rivendell, while her mother was the Elf Celebrian, daughter of the Elf-queen Galadriel, ruler of Lothlórien. She marries the Man Aragorn, who becomes King of Arnor and Gondor.
Thomas Alan Shippey is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien about whom he has written several books and many scholarly papers. His book The Road to Middle-Earth has been called "the single best thing written on Tolkien".
"The Scouring of the Shire" is the penultimate chapter of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship hobbits, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, return home to the Shire to find that it is under the brutal control of ruffians and their leader "Sharkey", revealed to be the Wizard Saruman. The ruffians have despoiled the Shire, cutting down trees and destroying old houses, as well as replacing the old mill with a larger one full of machinery which pollutes the air and the water. The hobbits rouse the Shire to rebellion, lead their fellow hobbits to victory in the Battle of Bywater, and end Saruman's rule.
The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given annually for outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas. Established by the Mythopoeic Society in 1971, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award is given for "fiction in the spirit of the Inklings", and the Scholarship Award for non-fiction work. The award is a statuette of a seated lion, with a plaque on the base. It has drawn resemblance to, and is often called, the "Aslan".
The Mythopoeic Society (MythSoc) is a non-profit organization devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature, particularly the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and C. S. Lewis. These men were all members of The Inklings, an informal group of writers who met weekly in Lewis' rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford, from the early 1930s until late 1949.
The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have generated a body of research covering many aspects of his fantasy writings. These encompass The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, along with his legendarium that remained unpublished until after his death, and his constructed languages, especially the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin. Scholars from different disciplines have examined the linguistic and literary origins of Middle-earth, and have explored many aspects of his writings from Christianity to feminism and race.
Mythlore is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal founded by Glen GoodKnight and published by the Mythopoeic Society. Although it publishes articles that explore the genres of myth and fantasy in general, special attention is given to the three most prominent members of the Inklings: J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. The current editor-in-chief is the Tolkien scholar Janet Brennan Croft. The Tolkien Society describes Mythlore as a "refereed scholarly journal".
Christina Scull is a British researcher and writer best known for her books about the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, in collaboration with her husband Wayne G. Hammond who is also a Tolkien scholar. They have jointly won Mythopoeic Scholarship Awards for Inklings Studies five times.
Douglas Allen Anderson is an American writer and editor on the subjects of fantasy and medieval literature, specializing in textual analysis of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. He is a winner of the Mythopoeic Award for scholarship.
Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review is an academic journal founded in 2004 publishing papers on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. The journal's founding editors are Douglas A. Anderson, Michael D. C. Drout, and Verlyn Flieger, and the current editors are Michael D. C. Drout, Verlyn Flieger, and David Bratman. It states that it is the first scholarly journal published by an academic press in the area of Tolkien research.
The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology is a scholarly study of the Middle-earth works of J. R. R. Tolkien written by Tom Shippey and first published in 1982. The book discusses Tolkien's philology, and then examines in turn the origins of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and his minor works. An appendix discusses Tolkien's many sources. Two further editions extended and updated the work, including a discussion of Peter Jackson's film version of The Lord of the Rings.
The roles of women in The Lord of the Rings have often been assessed as insignificant, or important only in relation to male characters in a story about men for boys. Meanwhile, other commentators have noted the empowerment of the three major women characters, Galadriel, Éowyn, and Arwen, and provided in-depth analysis of their roles within the narrative of The Lord of the Rings.
Commentators have compared Peter Jackson's 2001–2003 The Lord of the Rings film trilogy with the book on which it was based, J. R. R. Tolkien's 1954–1955 The Lord of the Rings, remarking that while both have been extremely successful commercially, the film version does not necessarily capture the intended meaning of the book. They have admired Jackson's ability to film the long and complex work at all; the beauty of the cinematography, sets, and costumes; the quality of the music; and the epic scale of his version of Tolkien's story. They have, however, found the characters and the story greatly weakened by Jackson's emphasis on action and violence at the expense of psychological depth; the loss of Tolkien's emphasis on free will and individual responsibility; and the replacement of Frodo's inner journey by an American monomyth with Aragorn as the hero.
John Garth is a British journalist and author, known especially for writings about J. R. R. Tolkien including his biography Tolkien and the Great War and a book on the places that inspired Middle-earth, The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien. He won a 2004 Mythopoeic Award for Scholarship for his work on Tolkien. The biography influenced much Tolkien scholarship in the subsequent decades.
Richard Carroll West was an American librarian and one of the first Tolkien scholars. He is best known for his 1975 essay on the interlace structure of The Lord of the Rings, for which he won the 1976 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inkling Studies.
J. R. R. Tolkien took part in the First World War, known then as the Great War, and began his fantasy Middle-earth writings at that time. The Fall of Gondolin was the first prose work that he created, and it contains detailed descriptions of battle and streetfighting. He continued the dark tone in much of his legendarium, as seen in The Silmarillion. The Lord of the Rings, too, has been described as a war book.
Bradford Lee Eden is a librarian and musicologist, best known as a Tolkien scholar.
Michael Foster, known as Mike Foster, was an emeritus professor of English and a Tolkien scholar. In 1978 he pioneered the teaching of Tolkien studies at university level.
Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy is a 2011 collection of essays on Peter Jackson's 2001–2003 film representation of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1954–1955 fantasy, The Lord of the Rings. It is edited by Janice M. Bogstad and Philip E. Kaveny.