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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Re-Visioning Underland: C. S. Lewis’S The Silver Chair As Dystopian Fiction, William Thompson
Re-Visioning Underland: C. S. Lewis’S The Silver Chair As Dystopian Fiction, William Thompson
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
In C. S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair, Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum follow the four signs given to them by Aslan and descend into the underworld in order to rescue the lost prince. They find the enchanted Prince Rilian, along with thousands of Earthmen, enslaved to the Green Lady, who has a plan to subjugate the people and creatures of Narnia. Michael Ward, in Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens and the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, takes a primarily Christological approach to the Narnia series, but finds a further analogue to Underland of The Silver Chair in the underworld …
The Road To Hell: Rebirth And Relevance In Musical Adaptations Of Katabatic Myth, Jarrod Deprado
The Road To Hell: Rebirth And Relevance In Musical Adaptations Of Katabatic Myth, Jarrod Deprado
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Adapting Greek mythology provides a framework to reapproach classic works through a contemporary lens to better understand the present. Of particular interest is the depiction of characters traveling to Hell in search of a better future. Looking at two myth-inspired musicals—The Frogs by Stephen Sondheim and Burt Shevelove and Hadestown by Anaïs Michell—we see two disparate journeys to the Underworld given contemporary relevance. The Frogs (1974) depicts Dionysus’ journey to Hades to bring back a poet (originally Euripides, now George Bernard Shaw). However, it was not until the 2004 Broadway adaptation that overtly anti-authoritarian messages were added, aimed at …
Thinking Makes It So? Hell As A (Fixable) State Of Mind In The Good Place And Lucifer, Erin Giannini
Thinking Makes It So? Hell As A (Fixable) State Of Mind In The Good Place And Lucifer, Erin Giannini
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
While different in genre, sitcom The Good Place and drama Lucifer share a certain irreverent tone and a somewhat unique approach to the afterlife. In The Good Place, there is no mention of gods or devils, only demons, a Good Place committee, and a judge. Lucifer, loosely based on Neil Gaiman’s graphic novels, however, features angels, demons, God, and the Devil, providing its own spin on established cosmology with embodied versions of prominent figures such as the archangel Michael and biblical brothers Cain and Abel. Yet what ties The Good Place and Lucifer together is a focus on …
“Hell Is Only A Word. The Reality Is Much, Much Worse”: Black Holes As Fantasy Gateways To Hell, Kristine Larsen
“Hell Is Only A Word. The Reality Is Much, Much Worse”: Black Holes As Fantasy Gateways To Hell, Kristine Larsen
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Black holes are frequently described as the scariest objects in the universe, even by the normally staid scientists who study them. Like the warning on the gate of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, any (hu)man or matter that dares to cross the event horizon abandons all hope before literally being ripped to shreds by the object’s extreme tidal forces. As the heart of the beast is approached, the laws of physics break down, time loses its simple everyday meaning, and mathematical madness reigns supreme. It is no wonder that Hollywood has repeatedly adopted the black hole as more than merely …
Substance Abuse: C.S. Lewis And The Symbolic Geography Of Hell, Richard Angelo Bergen
Substance Abuse: C.S. Lewis And The Symbolic Geography Of Hell, Richard Angelo Bergen
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake the Romantic, proffers a Romantic vision of hell, and a geographical representation of capacity and scope with an energetic apology. On the other hand, C.S. Lewis’s vision of hell in The Great Divorce is that of a land without substance: a land of addiction to mental maladies, an endless mental substance abuse, an emptying of presence. As one surveys the conversations throughout the book, one gets an increasing sense of the importance of understanding place correctly, as a matter of eternal consequence. One chapter concerns a well-travelled ghost who repeats his …
Panel: “Hell Is Other People: Looking At The Political Rage Machine In Tolkien Fan Spaces And Media”, Alicia Fox-Lenz, Grace Moone, Cara Marta Messina
Panel: “Hell Is Other People: Looking At The Political Rage Machine In Tolkien Fan Spaces And Media”, Alicia Fox-Lenz, Grace Moone, Cara Marta Messina
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Following the backlash against the Tolkien Society’s “Tolkien and Diversity” seminar and the airing of the first season of Rings of Power, social media fan spaces for Tolkien remain politically charged and reactionary. Building on the foundation of Mythcon 51’s Roundtable “Race, Racisms, and Tolkien,” and Craig Franson’s work showcased there and on the podcast “American Id,” we will discuss the current state of Tolkien discourse on social media and how to navigate the landscape as safely as possible.
Those Queer Devils: Queercoding Villains, Devils, And Demons In Mythopoeic Film And Media, Grace Moone
Those Queer Devils: Queercoding Villains, Devils, And Demons In Mythopoeic Film And Media, Grace Moone
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
In the early years of Hollywood’s Golden Age, The Hays Code functioned as a rigid morality code designed to shape the norms of Western culture. Its far-reaching impacts remain visible even decades after its enforcement was no longer required. In this talk, we will explore one of the most pervasive elements of the code’s legacy: the prohibition against showing LGBTQ characters in a positive light, and the resulting phenomenon of “queer-coding” characters. The practice of portraying LGBT+ characters through a lens of villainy and stereotype to adhere to the Hays Code requirement that queerness be punished and depicted as undesirable …
Animated Dancing To Hell And Back: Disney’S Fantasia, Matthew Elfenbein
Animated Dancing To Hell And Back: Disney’S Fantasia, Matthew Elfenbein
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Imaginative images of Heaven and Hell capture the sociocultural engagement with Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940), which demonstrates animated dancing bodies to represent the descent and passage of the hero’s journey. This journey is presented with many different forms of conflict and images that become unique through the qualities of the animated screendance. This form of dance on film is accentuated by the visualization of imaginative bodies, a conflict between knowledge and curiosity, and the spectacle of layering images on top of symbolic meanings to emphasize the power of identification with the audience. The spectators of this film are engaged with …
From Hell (Or Not): Representations Of Merlin And His Origins In The Comics, Michael A. Torregrossa
From Hell (Or Not): Representations Of Merlin And His Origins In The Comics, Michael A. Torregrossa
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
The Arthurian figure of Merlin has a long literary history, but he never seems able to shake off the effects of his parentage. In medieval tradition, Merlin is sired by inhuman powers: first a seemingly benign dæmon and then a decidedly wicked demon. This preternatural aspect to his conception grants Merlin the skills and powers he uses to support the realm, yet it also taints him as someone potentially dangerous. Although Merlin’s background cannot be changed, creative artists often choose to ignore or alter his origins, especially when retelling his story for mass audiences. In contrast, other creators, usually those …
Hell On Earth In Garth Nix’S Old Kingdom, John Rosegrant
Hell On Earth In Garth Nix’S Old Kingdom, John Rosegrant
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
I explore psychological meanings embedded in the Old Kingdom. Its River of Death is a hell impinging on life: Like Dante’s Inferno it has nine sectors; the dead take hideous Boschian forms; and helped by necromancers wielding “free magic” they often return to life. On this metaphor Nix builds the insight that desiring to live deeply and joyously risks turning hellish if early life was loveless. Necromancers and Free Magic are battled by Abhorsens and others wielding “Charter magic,” Free Magic transformed by symbols. Immersion in the Charter gives a joyous experience of connection to all life. Symbolization must …
Denethor’S Descent Into Hell, Craig Boyd
Denethor’S Descent Into Hell, Craig Boyd
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
One character in Tolkien’s Legendarium stands out as one of the more morally sad and complicated individuals: Denethor, the Steward of Gondor. Although he tries to defend the kingdom he cares for, his own significant moral weaknesses subvert even the best of his intentions. His despair, provoked by the death of his favorite son—and the apparent death of his other son—sends him into a spiral of self-destructive harm from which there is no return. What accounts for this are three factors. First, his self-imposed isolation from others cuts him off from the necessary fellowship that could sustain his character; his …
Infernal Landscape In Jacob’S Ladder (1990) In Light Of Carl G. Jung’S Theory Of Individuation, Fryderyk Kwiatkowski
Infernal Landscape In Jacob’S Ladder (1990) In Light Of Carl G. Jung’S Theory Of Individuation, Fryderyk Kwiatkowski
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Carl G. Jung’s conception of the human psyche as an inner realm that gives access to profound, numinous experiences inspired many artists and popular culture authors to portray heaven and hell as symbolic expressions of the opposite forces within the human psyche rather than cosmological or supernatural regions. In my paper, I will concentrate on how the Hollywood film Jacob’s Ladder (1990) directed by Adrian Lyne, by portraying the main character’s descent into a deathbed vision depicted as hellish reality, reflects Jung’s theory of individuation, a process of self-realization that aims at reconciling various elements of the psyche and achieving …
The Underworld As The Heroine’S Journey Home: Marvel, Xena, And Mythic Reimaginings, Valerie Estelle Frankel
The Underworld As The Heroine’S Journey Home: Marvel, Xena, And Mythic Reimaginings, Valerie Estelle Frankel
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Hell is traditionally a place of torment, where the young heroine, like Persephone or Eurydice, is kidnapped by the patriarchy, leaving others to rescue her. The last few decades, however, have offered a model closer to Sumerian Inanna, in which the heroine is enlightened by hell or even conquers it. Angela, Queen of Hel: Journey to the Funderworld by Marguerite Bennett (2016) gives its heroine this path. Winning back her beloved, Angela, sister of Thor and Loki, becomes queen of the underworld but then prefers to bring Sera back to earth in a flip on Eurydice. The Xena episode “Fallen …
Feasting At The Threshold: Transubstantiation, Queer Desire, And Homonationalism In Diane Duane’S The Tale Of The Five, Taylor Driggers
Feasting At The Threshold: Transubstantiation, Queer Desire, And Homonationalism In Diane Duane’S The Tale Of The Five, Taylor Driggers
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Diane Duane’s ongoing pulp fantasy series The Tale of the Five (1979- ) is set in a world marked by constant bodily transgressions and surprises, where a human and dragon can occupy the same body and become lovers and a one-night stand can bring one face-to-face with God. This essay will argue that Duane’s series articulates eroticism in a manner comparable to Linn Marie Tonstad’s (2016) queer re-visioning of transubstantiation and bodily and spiritual transformation through the Eucharist. Acts of eating and drinking serve to highlight how characters’ pansexual, polyamorous relations with each other and the love of the Goddess …
Hell On His Mind: Dean Winchester’S Journey To Hell And Back, Anna Caterino
Hell On His Mind: Dean Winchester’S Journey To Hell And Back, Anna Caterino
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Season three of Supernatural (2005-2020) closes with a shot of Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) in Hell. The place has no discernible features and resembles neither the long waiting line nor the gothic castle of later seasons. The few elements that do characterize it, however, make it look like a brain, the labyrinth of ropes reminiscent of neurons. This association introduces Hell as a place that exists first and foremost in Dean’s dead. The lack of establishing shots and the abstract terms used to discuss Hell, damnation, and Dean’s experience further support this claim, working in its favor. After all, the …
The Righteousness Of The Damned In Jeffrey Konvitz’S The Sentinel, Raymond G. Falgui
The Righteousness Of The Damned In Jeffrey Konvitz’S The Sentinel, Raymond G. Falgui
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
The paper will examine the nature of the damned in Jeffrey Konvitz’s 1970s pulp horror novel The Sentinel by using a framework utilized by C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce, wherein damnation involves a species of spiritual blindness that masquerades as righteousness and shields the damned (for a time) from an awareness of their ultimate condition. Specifically, the paper will provide a character analysis of the co-protagonist Michael, arguably one of Konvitz’s more complex literary creations, and the role he plays in briefly elevating a generic genre-contrived plot into the realm of true spiritual horror. While making such a …
Welcome And Announcements, Mythsoc Stewards
Welcome And Announcements, Mythsoc Stewards
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Welcome and Announcements
Join us for a screening of the Welcome and Announcements video, and have a cup of coffee before we get started!
Tolkien And The Classical World, Edited By Hamish Williams, Larry J. Swain
Tolkien And The Classical World, Edited By Hamish Williams, Larry J. Swain
Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature
No abstract provided.
Tolkien, Cline, And The Quest For A Silmaril, Tom Ue, James Munday
Tolkien, Cline, And The Quest For A Silmaril, Tom Ue, James Munday
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
J. R. R. Tolkien has had a significant influence on American writer Ernest Cline. In Ready Player One (2011), the character Ogden Morrow invites Wade and his friends to his mansion, which is modelled after Rivendell from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films (2001- 03). Cline goes further in his sequel Ready Player Two (2021) by staging a part of Wade’s virtual quest on Arda I, the First Age of Middle Earth. In this paper, we focus on this episode and, in so doing, argue for Cline’s insights into how we approach fantasy. First, we attend to the …
Who’S His Daddy? Approaches To Merlin’S Father In Children’S And Ya Media, Michael Torregosa
Who’S His Daddy? Approaches To Merlin’S Father In Children’S And Ya Media, Michael Torregosa
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
In the 1130s, Geoffrey of Monmouth originated the character of Merlin, setting him upon the world stage as a wonder-working youth fathered (in the tradition of Greek and Latin authors of the past) by a daemon. However, later writers of the Middle Ages, beginning with Robert de Boron, reconceived Merlin within a more Christianized world, altering his heritage and transforming his sire into a demon from Hell. This shift from benign daemon to malevolent demon has impacted the representation of the wizard of Camelot for centuries. Contemporary fiction for the page as well as for the screen has adopted and …
"Shivering Trees": Horror Monstrosity In Selected Stories From Tolkien’S The Silmarillion, Elise Mckenna
"Shivering Trees": Horror Monstrosity In Selected Stories From Tolkien’S The Silmarillion, Elise Mckenna
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
In The Silmarillion, Tolkien used conventions of horror within the setting of Arda. To begin with, the entire world, which is monstrous, is in upheaval with mountains being raised and valley being delved, lanterns of light created, and huge beings walking the land. Then, these landscapes are torn down, the lights are smashed and go out, and new creatures of horror prowl the world. The differences between the portrayals of monstrosity on a grand scale border the grotesque and the sublime. Monstrous beings, Valar and Maiar, command the elements of earth, air, fire, water. They have pre-ordained roles that …
The Story, The Narrator And The Reader: Mediated Horror In C.S. Lewis’S Narniad, William Thompson
The Story, The Narrator And The Reader: Mediated Horror In C.S. Lewis’S Narniad, William Thompson
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
In her introduction to Reading in the Dark: Horror in Children’s Literature and Culture, Jessica R. McCort defines horror for children and young adults as a hybrid genre, one having its roots in both the gothic and the nineteenth-century fairy tale. She explains that the exploration of dark forces in children’s books is often not limited to those tropes traditionally associated with the horror genre for adults: “Think of the books that are considered children’s classics. The best of them contain dark forces of one kind or another, as well as internal battles between the light and the dark: …
Environmental Horror And Restoration: Tolkien And Today, Jessica Dickinson Goodman, Caitlin Rottler
Environmental Horror And Restoration: Tolkien And Today, Jessica Dickinson Goodman, Caitlin Rottler
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
J.R.R. Tolkien never forgot the felling of a willow tree that had overlooked the mill-pool in Sarehole, nor how his former climbing companion had been left to rot in the grass. His horror at that small environmental violence bleeds through his works, from poems like “From the many-willow’d margin of the immemorial Thames” (1913) to the Party Tree in The Hobbit (1937) to a letter to The Daily Telegraph in 1972 when he decried the modern “torture and murder of trees.” This presentation will draw on the excellent foundations laid by Dinah Hazell, as well as the father-son pair of …
Nature And Horror In Tolkien’S Legendarium, Julia Bowers
Nature And Horror In Tolkien’S Legendarium, Julia Bowers
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Tolkien incorporates horror in his legendarium through the twisting of the natural world in order to signal upcoming dangers to his characters. This creates a dichotomy between the idyllic natural world that represents good in his works and the twisted natural world that has been tampered with by evil. Most of the focus on Tolkien’s portrayal of nature looks at the conflict between nature and technology; the natural world of Middle-earth is portrayed as more complex than merely all nature being good. His natural settings take on an eerie tone to convey a sense of horror to the reader as …
Delight In Horror’: Charles Williams And Russell Kirk On Hell And The Supernatural, Camilo Peralta
Delight In Horror’: Charles Williams And Russell Kirk On Hell And The Supernatural, Camilo Peralta
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Charles Williams has always been one of the more overlooked members of the Inklings, and the continued neglect of his poetry and “supernatural thrillers” suggests that he is not likely to experience a dramatic increase in popularity anytime soon. Similarly, Russell Kirk is an American historian who will always be better known for writing The Conservative Mind in 1953 than for any of the dozens of short stories and novels he wrote, many of which deal with ghostly or supernatural themes. In fact, Kirk acknowledged Williams to be an important influence on his fiction; this influence is perhaps most evident …
Charles Williams' P'O- L'U - The Cthulhu Connection, Eric Rauscher
Charles Williams' P'O- L'U - The Cthulhu Connection, Eric Rauscher
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
This presentation delineates the connections between horrific elements in the work of H.P. Lovecraft and the situation of P’o-L’u from Charles Williams.
White Shadows, Black Riders And Restless Wights: Undead Horror Monsters In The Fantasy Worlds Of J.R.R. Tolkien And George R.R. Martin, Franz Klug
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
The proposed essay aims at comparing J.R.R. Tolkien’s Nazgûl and barrow-wights with the white walkers (also known as “the Others”) and wights from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. To begin with, the folkloric/mythological templates for these sub-created monsters would be scrutinized. The introductory ascription of source material would be followed by an analysis of these creatures as horror monsters and gothic elements within the fantasy worlds of Tolkien and Martin. This analysis would also be linked to addressing the question of how the gothic/horror genre influenced the fantasy worlds of both authors, and as in …
Adoring The Head Of Alcasan: Posthuman Horror And Anticipatory Corpse In Lewis’S That Hideous Strength, Mark Brians
Adoring The Head Of Alcasan: Posthuman Horror And Anticipatory Corpse In Lewis’S That Hideous Strength, Mark Brians
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
At the pinnacle of Lewis’ That Hideous Strength (2003) is the reanimation of the decapitated head of Francois Alcasan. The sheer biological persistence that is afforded to it by the biosynthetic technics of medicinal artifice, allows the head to be possessed by “macrobes”— maleficent spiritual beings imprisoned within the circle of the moon. The goal of this reanimation project is purportedly “the conquest of death […] to bring out of that cocoon of organic life […] the man who will not die, the artificial man, free from Nature. Nature is the ladder we have climbed up by, now we kick …
The Overlooked Vampire: Might Macdonald’S Lilith Be Repopularized?, A. J. Prufrock
The Overlooked Vampire: Might Macdonald’S Lilith Be Repopularized?, A. J. Prufrock
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Lilith (1895) is George MacDonald’s premier work of symbolic fiction. W.H. Auden asserts that Lilith is “equal, if not superior, to the best of Poe." A cursory reading of the novel reveals much in Narnia can be traced directly to passages. Why has MacDonald’s Lilith received so little commentary and why is it picked up and then put down by even avid readers of fantasy? Universalist theology and chauvinism have been blamed, but literary style is unarguably the main stumbling block. C.S. Lewis, who says of MacDonald, “I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not …
Tolkien As A Folk Horror Author, Monica Sanz
Tolkien As A Folk Horror Author, Monica Sanz
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Folk Horror, although being identified as a cinematographic genre quite recently, sinks its roots in an undeniable tradition of English writers who used English rural landscapes, ancient beliefs and culturally differentiated communities as humus for their prose and poetry. From the literary tradition of the 8th Century on, creatures and beliefs belonging to dark times have left their mark on our literature, traditions and folklore. Tolkien, as a philologist, was well aware of the hints and bits of these almost unknown legends and creatures left in our language, in the form of loose words, etymologies and fragmentary texts. In this …