Oxford Tolkien Seminar
A talk delivered at Magdalen College, Oxford University
Hello, all!
Last month, on 6 June 2025, I was invited to Oxford University to give a talk as part of their monthly Oxford Tolkien Seminar. The Oxford Tolkien Network has uploaded video of last term’s presentations to their YouTube channel, including mine: “Tolkien the Post-Christian? A Proposition.”
Some of the content here will be familiar to you if you’ve followed my work. My central claim—appropriately given the title—is that while J.R.R. Tolkien was unquestionably a Roman Catholic, his work may best be understood as post-Christian fantasy for a post-Christian world.
If you want to know what I mean by that, have a listen!
If you’d like to read along to the written text of the talk, just reach out to thomas.emanuel@glasgow.ac.uk.