Reading The Lord of the Rings, Rereading Ourselves

What are we looking for when we come back to our favorite stories?

On Friday 30 August 2024, I had the honor and privilege of presenting a paper at Oxonmoot, the annual gathering of the Tolkien Society at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. “The Tale We’ve Fallen Into: Reading The Lord of the Rings, Rereading Ourselves” serves as a window into my PhD research at the University of Glasgow as well as a reflection, at once scholarly and extremely personal, on how much The Lord of the Rings has meant to me over the course of my life. Toward the end of the paper I tell my audience:

I will not offer up my experience of The Lord of the Rings as universal, or even necessarily as common. But I will offer it up, in the hopes that it will resonate with your experience, whatever that may be. A story to think with, perhaps, an invitation to reflect on the ways in which The Lord of the Rings has molded you.

I provide the video, which has been edited and uploaded by the intrepid volunteers of the Tolkien Society, in the same spirit. I hope you find in it something that speaks to the truth of your experience - if not with Tolkien, then with the other works of art which have contributed, as Ursula Le Guin puts it, to “the size and temper of your soul.”

P.S. If you would like a digital copy of the paper, for accessibility or any other reasons, email me at thomas.emanuel@glasgow.ac.uk and I am happy to oblige. If you’re able to do so, though, I encourage you to watch the video without reading along - the paper works best as a performance. Thank you!

[Image credit: New Line Cinema]