Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The David Oberhelman Collection Of Science Fiction, Fantasy, And Tolkieniana At Oklahoma State University, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

In September 2020 I drove to the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Stillwater campus to see “The David Oberhelman J. R. R. Tolkien Collection” exhibit, on display on the Edmon Low Library’s second-floor mezzanine in the Lisa and Mark Snell Gallery.

President Lovell And Beta Upsilon Chi, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Presidents’ Day Cards

SWOSU President Diana Lovell met with Beta Upsilon Chi (Brothers Under Christ) brothers Brock Parker (left) and Connor Blackburn (right) as they delivered hand-made cards for Presidents' Day.

Kansas And The Cold War, Landry Brewer

Faculty Articles & Research

Because of its part in the nation's nuclear arsenal, in a movie depicting nuclear war, and in providing an American President, Kansas's Cold War rol was among the nations most important.

Swosu Research And Scholarly Activity Fair 2022, Swosu Office Of Sponsored Programs

SWOSU Research and Scholarly Activity Fair Programs

On behalf of Southwestern Oklahoma State University, welcome to the Thirtieth Research and Scholarly Activity Fair! We are proud to host students and faculty from universities and community colleges from across the state at this meeting of scholars. Research and scholarly activity ranging from Business Administration, Education and Professional Studies, Fine Arts and Design, Liberal Arts, and Mathematics and Science.
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Sincerely, SWOSU Office of Sponsored Programs and URSAC

Dread Nation And Deathless Divide, By Justina Ireland. Reviewed By Phillip Fitzsimmons., Phillip Fitzsimmons

Mythprint Book Reviews

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

Half Sick Of Shadows, By Laura Sebastian. Reviewed By Mckenzie Peck, Mckenzie Peck

Mythprint Book Reviews

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

The Fall Of Gondolin: Complete Demo Recording, By Paul Corfield Godfrey. Reviewed By David Bratman., David Bratman

Mythprint Book Reviews

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

The Flight Of The Wild Gander By Joseph Campbell, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension - Selected Essays, 1944-1968 is a 2018 addition to The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series. This volume of essays begins with a history of the Grimm brothers and fairy tales, moves on to the author’s ideas on the role of society to the development of mythologies, and ends with the secularization of the sacred. This book would go nicely with his The Mythic Dimension: Selected Essays 1959–1987, a 2017 reissue of the volume, also for The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series. Both books develop similar themes …

Editorial, Janet Brennan Croft

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This is our largest issue of Mythlore to date; in fact, at 288 pages, we have reached the limit at which we can keep our postage rates at their current level, so you won’t ever see a larger issue under our current subscription model.

The Saga Of The Volsungs: With The Saga Of Ragnar Lothbrok, Translated By Jackson Crawford, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

The Saga of the Volsungs: With the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok is a treat. Both compositions in the volume contain larger than life heroes and heroines who engage in adventures and who fight for the survival and wealth of their clans. They are also consumed--generation after generation--by the blood-feud and by the compulsion to fulfill, to the letter-of-the-word, their unwise vows, and executing them to their last logical and bitter consequences. The stories consist of heart wrenching episodes of treachery, violence, incest, and infanticide. But, both sagas can grow on a reader. They are also tales about an action-oriented people …

Mirrors To The Underworld: Reflective Portals Between Life And Death In The Harry Potter Series, Thea Juneau

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This article argues that reflective surfaces throughout all seven Harry Potter novels symbolize thresholds between discrete worlds. By displaying Harry’s dead parents on ‘the other side’ of the Mirror of Erised, the text draws on the Myth of Narcissus and various other mythological death-mirrors to create the impression of an inverse afterlife realm where the dead live again, supporting the central themes of death and grief in the series. By drawing upon Lori M. Campbell’s theory of object ‘porters,’ the article shows how the gradual transformation of this framework through more abstract reflections (eyes, creatures, lakes) reveals a deep symbolic …

The Conscience Of Solomon Kane: Robert E. Howard’S Rhetorics Of Motive, World, And Race, Gabriel Mamola

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

In this article I use key definitions from the writings of C. S. Lewis and Hannah Arendt to analyze the portrayal of "conscience as motive" in Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane stories. I propose a reading of "Kane Saga" as unified by a single underlying fantasy narrative structured around the development of Kane’s conscience across several adventures set in Europe and Africa. In doing so, I attempt to construe these stories of Howard’s earliest “Sword and Sorcery” hero as a fruitful place for critical engagement with Howard’s rhetorics of race, motive, conscience, and action. In doing so, I push back …

The Saga Of The Volsungs: With The Saga Of Ragnar Lothbrok, Translated By Jackson Crawford, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

The Saga of the Volsungs: With the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok is a treat. Both compositions in the volume contain larger than life heroes and heroines who engage in adventures and who fight for the survival and wealth of their clans. They are also consumed--generation after generation--by the blood-feud and by the compulsion to fulfill, to the letter-of-the-word, their unwise vows, and executing them to their last logical and bitter consequences. The stories consist of heart wrenching episodes of treachery, violence, incest, and infanticide. But, both sagas can grow on a reader. They are also tales about an action-oriented people …

The Green Knight, Directed By David Lowery. Reviewed By Marc Rhodes-Taylor., Marc Rhodes-Taylor

Mythprint Book Reviews

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

“Something Has Gone Crack:” New Perspectives On J.R.R. Tolkien In The Great War, Edited By Janet Brennan Croft And Annika Rӧttinger. Reviewed By Michael Mccartney., Michael Mccartney

Mythprint Book Reviews

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

Stories Grow Larger In The Night, Sarah Berti

The Mythic Circle

in the morning fold your wings but in the dark go out

Two Souls On A Shore, Geoffrey Reiter

The Mythic Circle

The elf and the Kuparean man were hungry as they walked along the shore of the island. They did not remain at the rock-choked shallows that had disemboweled their trireme.

The Tale Of The Troll Maiden And The Cobbler, David Gilman Frederick

The Mythic Circle

Once, in the lands across the sea, there was a cobbler. Unremarkable as such an occupation may be here, in those lands it is one of high esteem. They have rugged cliffs to scale, unknown steppes to cross, jagged boulders, spiny hedgehogs, mudflats, cacti, flints, vines, thorns— much of that land, I have heard, is picturesque, with sweeping vistas and forests that anticipate the colors of the sunset.

Emhain Ablach, Joshua S. Fullman

The Mythic Circle

A slate horizon keeps captive none who’d gaze with eyes eternal,

Editors' Introductions, The Editors

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Mythic Circle #43, The Editors

The Mythic Circle

Is it just us, or was 2020-2021 the worst year of the past hundred years? Infections, deaths, lockdowns, and quarantines too long for human endurance just kept on keeping on, intensified by squabbles between proponents of collective health measures (masks, vaccines, social distancing) on one side and of individual personal liberties, regardless of the social and health impact, on the other. But through it all, artists continued to think, dream, and produce new work.

Welcome To The Busty Wench, E. Clarence Peterson

The Mythic Circle

Toby’s step down from the coach was greeted by the damp embrace of cobblestone puddles. Deceptively deep and cold, they were none too fresh, either.

The Black Eyes Of Ulspruth-Dimot, Lee Clark Zumpe

The Mythic Circle

A misty morning met the awakening village of Madichi. Dawn made pale the cloudy skies, and upon the breeze cascading down from the mountains was a subtle chill.

Tricked By The Queen Of Fey, Ella Wallsworth-Bell

The Mythic Circle

Before going to the pub, I take a quick stroll to pluck up courage. Turn along the lane out of the village, my smart shoes softly tap-tapping on the tarmac. A few early stars shine bright in the clear autumn sky and my stomach does somersaults.

The Three Kindreds, Jonathan Rolfe

The Mythic Circle

High are the Elves, and high their works, And bright was Earth beneath their hand,

You Passed Me The Story, Sarah Berti

The Mythic Circle

in the dark! you passed me the story

How The Dryad And The Naiad Got Or Didn't Get Together, Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

The Mythic Circle

Once, in the river-land of Sopenya, near Lake Chellu, there lived a naiad and a dryad. They were a boy and a girl, respectively.

C.S. Lewis's Meditation Over "The Book Of The Leoun", Joe R. Christopher

The Mythic Circle

One wonders what did Chaucer mean to make?! A version out of French, for versing’s sake?

Two In One, David A. Sparenberg

The Mythic Circle

As I looked to the high ground, which was indeed shaped in the semblance of a sublime albeit miniature mountain, imagine my amazement to hold in view the monumental figure of a curious two-headed deity.

Spray-Painting The Sistine Chapel: Aesthetic Problems In Leaf By Niggle, John Holmes

Mythcon

No work of the allegoriphobic Tolkien is more manifestly allegorical than his short story “Leaf By Niggle.” Because of the story’s unmistakably allegorical nature, when the reader encounters the four-word sentence that opens the second paragraph—“Niggle was a painter”—the initial response might justly be to read “painter” in a more generic sense to mean “artist in general.” Indeed, the best criticism of this story tends to read Niggle’s problem as an analogue of Tolkien’s problem as sub-creator of Middle-earth, primarily in writing. But because Tolkien’s rendering of Middle-earth sometimes took form in pencil sketches and watercolors as well, Niggle’s painterly …