Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons^™

The God Machine: Environmental Resonances In Tolkien And Hollow Knight: Silksong, Alicia Fox-Lenz

Mythcon

After reading The Lord of the Rings, it would not be surprising for the reader to assume Tolkien was a luddite or at very least had some deep-rooted environmentalist leanings. After all, the anti-industrialist sentiment is one of the many themes that so enamored his American fans in the 1960s. In LOTR, industry (as opposed to craft) is aligned with evil, most notably through Saruman — a failed craftsman who has turned to machination. Through him, we see the industrialization of Isengard and its deleterious effects on nearby Fangorn, as well as the resulting destruction of the failed …

The Harlequinades: Agatha Christie’S Forays Into Fantasy, Joe R. Christopher

Mythcon

This review by Joe R. Christopher explores Agatha Christie’s long engagement with the Commedia dell’Arte tradition - referenced in current popular culture through figures such as the Batman series’ Harlequin character – and traces how elements of that fantasy appear throughout her early poetry and some of her short-fiction work. Her Harlequinade foray was in a self- funded volume of poems, some of which read as autobiographical. The evocation of wandering ancient, semi-immortal spirits may reflect a business trip taken with her first husband. Christie extends the Commedia motifs into her prose where she introduces recurring characters; notably, a character, …

Gondor Calls For Aid! Volunteering And Running For Office With The Mythopoeic Society, Janet Brennan Croft, Megan B. Abrahamson, Phillip Fitzsimmons, Alicia Fox-Lenz, Victoria Gaydosik, Tim Lenz

Mythcon

We often talk about volunteering and about serving as a Society officer at the membership meeting at the end of Mythcon. But this more intimate panel will give you the opportunity to hear from Stewards and Managers directly about their experiences as volunteers and ask questions about how you can get involved -- and why you should think about it! Panelists will talk about how they got started, how rewarding it is, what kind of time commitment it takes, the differences between being a Steward and a Manager, and other long and short term volunteer opportunities.

Mythopoeic Awards Finalists Discussion, David Lenander, Grace Moone

Mythcon

General Discussion of the Finalists for the 2026 Mythopoeic Awards. We expect some committee members to offer their opinions and experiences and invite others to share their reactions to the books! Discussion of the awards process and suggestions for the future are also in order. Find out how to become involved for next year. What books did we miss?

Illustrating Lothlórien As A Faerie Space In The Lord Of The Rings By J.R.R. Tolkien, Marie Bretagnolle

Mythcon

In The Fellowship of the Ring, when the travelers step in Lothlórien, their perceptions of their surroundings and of time are altered. Numerous papers have considered the literary devices used by J.R.R. Tolkien to convey the sense of otherness that makes this Elven realm an equivalent to Faerie in Middle-earth. In their turn, how do visual artists tasked with illustrating The Lord of the Rings transpose these effects in their pictures? In this paper I continue my research into Tolkienian illustrations by analyzing the visual devices used by Mary Fairburn, Alan Lee, and the duo formed by the Queen …

Glen Goodknight's International Narnia Collection, David L. Emerson

Mythcon

In 1975, Glen GoodKnight, founder of the Mythopoeic Society, began to take serious interest in translations of the Narniad, collecting editions from over 40 different countries. By 2004, he had begun to make his wonderful collection of non-English editions available to the world through his website, inklingsfocus.com. With his passing in 2010, the site was due to be shut down, but I participated in preserving the images of these foreign book covers, assisting Lewis fan Gordon Greenhill in reconstructing the gallery on his site called The Disordered Image.

This presentation will be a slide show of many of these …

Perception As A Gateway Of Faërie In Owen Barfield’S Philosophy Of Language, Sylwia Wilczewska

Mythcon

Recording removed at author's request

Since Verlyn Flieger showed the importance of Owen Barfield’s account of poetic language outlined in Poetic Diction for the metaphysical structure of Tolkien’s universe (cf. Flieger 33-44), Barfield’s writings have been an object of increased scholarly attention. While the point most often commented upon is the impact of Barfield’s vision of the evolution of language on Tolkien’s theory of sub-creation, the traces of Barfield’s influence can also be found in other Inklings. Here I would like to offer some speculations on the connection between Barfield’s idea of language and the way in which the writings …

Remembering Lee Speth, Megan B. Abrahamson

Mythcon

Do you have memories of Lee Speth you want to share? Please join us as we remember a beloved Mythsoc member and Steward, and consider how best to memorialize his presence in the future of the Society.

Between The Unexpected And The Unknown: The Liminal Transformation Of Bilbo Baggins And Travelers Along Route 66, Logan O. Uber

Mythcon

Much like Bilbo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit travelers along Route 66 knew where their journey would take them, but not how it would change them. Applying liminal theory this paper demonstrates that Route 66 and Tolkien’s road function as transformative threshold spaces where travelers leave behind familiar identities to enter landscapes marked by uncertainty, danger, and possibility. Dust Bowl Migrants—individuals and families fleeing the Depression for better opportunities—and Bilbo all set out to find a better, if not different future. Their journeys transform and change them, making them more than what they once were. Route 66 exists as …

Mythic Roads: Tolkien's Literary Network And Cosmopolitan Imagination, Hayden Bilbrey

Mythcon

Journeys and roads are central to J.R.R. Tolkien's stories in Middle-earth, but the significance of these pathways extends beyond physical landscapes. This paper argues that Tolkien's legendarium constructs a network of texts, cultural traditions, and temporal frameworks. Drawing on concepts from Caroline Levine's concept of literary networks, this paper examines how Tolkien integrates elements of Christianity, Norse, and other mythological systems to create a cohesive mythopoetic structure. Not merely just coexisting; these influences form interconnected nodes with a larger network that readers traverse through the narrative. Thus, Middle-earth becomes not only a setting but a cosmopolitan mythic space shaped by …

Spacing Out Of The Shire: Spatiomagus And Spatial Nomadism In The Lord Of The Rings, Kieran Strand-Leeds

Mythcon

As a text, The Lord of the Rings is obsessed with the natural and the magical in the mundane. However, what is often neglected in Tolkien studies is the idea of the space in which the natural and the magical exist. Here, I present the theory of spatiomagus to help us understand space in fantasy literature. Building off the Deleuzoguattarian theory of smooth/striated space, spatiomagus asserts that space in fantasy texts is influenced physically and/or created virtually by the magical “light” and “dark.” This intersection of magic and space can create, destroy, and alter places via metaphysical means, and spatiomagus …

No Body, No Sacrament: Tolkien’S Route From Children Of The Valar To Marriage As An ‘Association’ In The History Of Middle-Earth Drafts, Nicole Duplessis

Mythcon

Rather than overt religious symbolism or over-reliance on the trappings of Catholicism, like Marian or Eucharistic imagery, that also appear in his works, Tolkien infused Middle-earth with his own sacramental imagination, possibly through both conscious and sub-conscious creative choices. This sacramental imagination helps explain how obvious pagan influences and seemingly contradictory readings of Tolkien’s works can coexist with his assertion that the work is fundamentally Catholic. One area in which this sacramental imagining can be followed, as a route through his drafts, is in his development of the Valar as non-corporeal beings alongside his alteration of their marriage relationships from …

Eucatastrophe: J.R.R. Tolkien As A Christian Apologist, Donald T. Williams

Mythcon

Williams will explore the ways Tolkien defined eucatastrophe, and also provided numerous examples of eucatastrophe in his legendarium. In doing so, Tolkien develops a Christian apologetics.

Orc Road Trip; Or, We’Re Taking The Hobbits To Isengard!, Robert T. Tally Jr.

Mythcon

“Leg it!” Ever wanted to “foot it through the Horse-country” with Uglúk? Cross the Great River with Grishnákh? Travel with goblin messengers “to and fro between all their cities, colonies, and strongholds,” by “tunnel or under dark,” to “Gundabad of the North,” their “capital”? Or perhaps you can “slip off” with Gorbag and “a few trusty lads” to places “where there’s good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses”? It might be enough to join those who’ve just “come all the way from the Mines” to “avenge our folk” and “then go back north”? And if you’re feeling a …

Fundamentally Linguistic, John Rosegrant

Mythcon

We know that although Tolkien wrote that his legendarium was “fundamentally linguistic in inspiration. . . To me a name comes first and the story follows”, in fact legendarium content preceded Tolkien’s invention of Elvish languages. I will argue that nevertheless the first part of the quotation is true: the legendarium was fundamentally linguistic in inspiration. Tolkien used symbolic language to access the musical and body-related aspects of language that the symbolic has distanced us from, simultaneously uniting two aspects of our nature while recognizing their inevitable separation. When we as children master the symbolic function of language we lose …

Fangorn Forest As A Rerouting To The Ecological Contemplative In The Two Towers, Nicholas Birns

Mythcon

In The Two Towers, Fangorn Forest initially appears as an uncanny diversion when Merry and Pippin flee into its shadowy depths to escape Saruman’s Uruk-hai. Their encounter with Treebeard awakens the Ents, providing unexpected and devastating flow to the power of Saruman the White. Far from actually being scary or horrifying, though, the forest is actually the gateway to two very important qualities in The Lord of the Rings: a sense of deep psychology, of caring for the land so much that sentient being has become actually bound up with natural entities, and of contemplation, as Treebeard Who …

The Future Of The Mythopoeic Society, Megan Abrahamson, Mythsoc Stewards

Mythcon

As technology and membership patterns change, what do you want to see in the future of the Mythopoeic Society? What do you want to get out of your membership? How do we want to bill ourselves to younger generations? This panel, made up of the Stewards, will be a discussion for members of the Society or those looking to become members and will serve as a preliminary conversation to the Members Meeting on Monday. The Society’s new AI policy will also be discussed.

Local & Experiential: Exploring Embodied Ethnogeomythology Through Ttrpg, Gregory Fields, Teagan Brady, Dakota Dalota, Claira Hickman, Gina Manygoats, Donovan Mcbride, Ryan Pillmore

Mythcon

The panel will focus on an interdisciplinary pedagogical approach anchored to research applications of AAC&U High Impact Practices in integrative learning, learning communities, place-based writing, project-based learning, and gamification studies (Chou). Framed through a synthesis of ethno-geology and mythology, I developed a collaborative assignment that asked my intro to mythology students to develop their own mythologies based on Arizona specific cultures or geological features and oddities. After conducting their own background research, undergraduate students developed locally-based mythologies that answered at least one of the four big questions of existence. Then, they anchored those mythologies within one of the more readily …

Opening Ceremonies / Scholar Guest Of Honor Keynote - The Rhetoric Of The Road: The Romantic Journey As A Map Of Myth, Memory, And Majesty, Joe R. Christopher

Mythcon

OPENING CEREMONIES and SCHOLAR GUEST OF HONOR KEYNOTE ADDRESS: The Rhetoric of the Road: The Romantic Journey as a Map of Myth, Memory, and Majesty

New Info On The Hunt For The Ring, Chad Bornholdt, Bill Fliss

Mythcon

With Bill Fliss's assistance, Chad plots the paths of all characters, including individual Nazgûl, throughout Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings.

Haunted, Will Travel: “Divided, Fractured, And Barely Legible” The Nightmare-Self In Harrow The Ninth, Atiyana Ringling

Mythcon

My research intends to bring Mark Fisher’s 2012 definition of Hauntology into conversation with the sci-fi journey in Tamsyn Muir’s Harrow the Ninth and its titular character. Using the lens of this Mythcon 54 to focus on the physical and parallel mental journey of Harrow, the physical journey traveled tracks and maps the “lost future” of the world’s inhabitants and questions the extent to which the physical road traveled can mask or hide its destructive inception. “The River” and road traveled in the novel are the result of catastrophic consumption and transformation of the Solar System by the novel's Emperor. …

From Dust Bowl To Digital: Fueling Your Research In The Mythsoc Archives, Phillip Fitzsimmons, Janet Brennan Croft, Victoria Gaydosik, Brice Odom

Mythcon

The 5,122 posted works in the Mythsoc digital collections have been downloaded 1,560,574 times from July 2017 to June 2026. These usage statistics show that scholarship posted on the Mythsoc digital collections serves the research needs of scholars internationally, provides free and easy discoverability to authors’ works, and usage reports to contributors that provide evidence of the impact of their work. The Panelists will present on the success of the first eight years of using the SWOSU Digital Commons as the platform for the Mythopoeic Society Archives. This presentation will introduce you to the Mythopoeic Society Collections page of the …

An Infinite Number Of Roads Diverged In A Wood: Robert Heinlein’S Maximalist Road Trip In The Number Of The Beast, Patrick Julian

Mythcon

Robert Heinlein, Grand Master of Speculative Fiction, was born in Butler, MO (one hour north of Route 66), raised in Kansas City, and lived much of his early adult life in Los Angeles, the westernmost terminus of Route 66. Given this proximity to the Mother Road, it’s no surprise that Heinlein spent a considerable portion of his career writing about various versions of the Road Trip, whether it was taken via foot, horse-drawn carriage, automobile or spaceship. The Roads Must Roll, his 3rd published short story (1940), name checks Route 66, while many of his early works of juvenile …

How To Use Your Mythsoc Membership Online, Megan B. Abrahamson, Alicia Fox-Lenz, Sean Marlow, Grace Moone

Mythcon

Panelists Grace Moone, Sean Marlow, and Alicia Fox-Lenz will give a tutorial on the new Mythopoeic Society membership platform. Now up and running and attached to our website, the new Membershipworks platform allows you to view your membership, getting us off a 30-year-old spreadsheet and into the 21st century! Bring your computer, phone or tablet as the Stewards showcase the uses of the platform and help you with any login issues.

The Scholar's Journey: The Limits Of Academic Discourse, Katherine Mcloone

Mythcon

Indrapramit Das's The Devourers (2015) follows a Kolkata historian who encounters a werewolf with a complicated past. As Alok learns more about the vibrancy of that past, he discovers truths about himself and about the mythic traditions still alive in the remote Sundarban forest.

Rivers Solomon’s The Deep (2019) portrays a historian from a culture of mermaid-like creatures descended from the pregnant women thrown overboard in the Middle Passage: She must leave her people so she can grapple with the weight of her profession. In R.F. Kuang's Katabasis (2025), two post-graduate students studying magick travel to the underworld to rescue …

The Road Goes Ever On: Teaching Tolkien In Colleges Today, Leslie A. Donovan, Megan B. Abrahamson, Cami D. Agan, Katherine Wyma, Joseph Rex Young

Mythcon

As Tolkien studies has evolved, Middle-earth no longer needs to be defended as a legitimate academic subject. Today, Tolkien’s works are commonly taught as literary classics in colleges and universities alongside other mythic traditions such as The Odyssey and Beowulf. For students, however, the meaning of “classic” can be complicated. Many students encounter Tolkien long before entering college through popular media, films, games, and digital fandom, while the historical, linguistic, and cultural contexts that informed his writing (war, philology, faith, and medievalism, among others) can feel increasingly distant. As a result, Tolkien’s works may seem both deeply familiar and …

Travel In Ryan Coogler’S Sinners: The Going-Ons Of The Smoke Stack Twins And Remmick, Mena Nizam

Mythcon

This paper explores the adventures of the Smoke Stack Twins, Remmick the Vampire, the themes of travel (via walking, running, driving) their jukebox joint, its placement in a sawmill along the Mississippi Travel/black issues/the character of Remmick. The theme is purely on travel and the symbolism of traveling while experiencing racism.

Shared Trauma, Shared Drama: Faërian Drama In Russian Doll And Elsewhere, Janet Croft

Mythcon

In his seminal essay “On Fairy-stories” (1939), J.R.R. Tolkien introduces the concept of Faërian drama: experiences with a “realism and immediacy beyond the compass of any human mechanism,” where the viewer feels he is “bodily inside [a] Secondary World” but instead is “in a dream that some other mind is weaving.” This framing structure is used, though not called by this name, in many other texts. In a series of four previously published essays, I have attempted to explore and codify this concept. Picking up a theme hinted at but not explored in my previous papers, what happens when the …

King Sorrow By Joe Hill. Reviewed By Phillip Fitzsimmons, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Mythprint Book Reviews

Book review of King Sorry by Joe Hill. Reviewed by Phillip Fitzsimmons.

Briefly Noted: Raven And Crow: The Mythology, Art And Science Of Our Favorite Black Birds By Ellen W. Williams By Ellen W. Williams, Janet Croft

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

Review of Raven and Crow: The Mythology, Art and Science of Our Favorite Black Birds by Ellen W. Williams, McFarland, 2025.