Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons^™

Tolkien’S Queer Landscape: Three Papers On Middle-Earth’S Heterotopias, Will Sherwood, Marita Arvaniti, Mariana Rios Maldonado

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The following papers will explore Tolkien’s queer landscapes of Middle-earth: from Arda’s highest peaks and hidden underbellies, to her liminal, fae places, using the lens of Michel Foucault’s heterotopias.

Marita Arvaniti will introduce the panel and discuss Tolkien’s Faerian Drama and its relationship to the much-maligned Tom Bombadil episode, focusing on the queer figure of Tom Bombadil himself and his heterotopic domain.

Mariana Rios Maldonado will analyse the Barrow-downs, Dead Marshes, and Paths of the Dead as symbolic sites of death created during harrowing moments in the history of Middle-earth. These are no-places: spaces of Otherness containing the evil and …

Welcome And Announcements, The Mythopoeic Society

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Join us for a screening of the Welcome and Announcements video in the 'Track 1' room, and have a cup of coffee before we get started!

Death, Dreaming, And Diaspora: Achieving Orientation Through Afro-Spirituality, Liz Johnston, Jaime Elizabeth Johnston

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Enslavement, colonization, and the systems that uphold racial injustice were and still are a series of new, unfathomable, and challenging experiences that prompt individuals within the diaspora to seek orientation. How does a human cope with centuries of attempts at the systematic destruction of their humanity, culture, and identity? How can they reclaim that identity, especially when so much of it seems lost? I address these questions by utilizing texts from the expansive body of work regarding ethnographic-historical-religious studies on Afro-spiritual practices to better analyze instances in literature in the ongoing practice of diasporic orientation. In this project, I argue …

Describing Dictee, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

The visual images in Dictee are famously captionless. They resist straightforward explanation. In writing image descriptions of the images in Dictee, I have tried to preserve the "captionlessness" of the original. The point here is not to explain the pictures—an image description is not identical to a caption—but to make Dictee more accessible to readers who are blind and visually impaired. I realize, of course, that in trying to make Dictee's captionless images more "legible," I have inevitably "mistranslated" Dictee as it was originally designed to be experienced. Its captionlessness is lost in translation despite my efforts to preserve it. …

Excerpts From An Anti-Standardized “수능”: A Design-Fictional Approach To Korea, Seo-Young J. Chu, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

"Excerpts from an Anti-Standardized '수능'” experiments with design fiction to disrupt overly rehearsed ways of thinking about Korea’s past(s), present(s), and future(s).

Frights And Forests: The Hellish Landscape Of The Dark Forest, From Sleepy Hollow To The Forest Of Arden, Minna Nizam

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

This paper seeks to explore forest settings in fantasy, and its hellish landscapes. From the headless horseman in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, to the frights and horrors of mythical creatures in fantasy settings placed in forests. The purpose of this study is to dive deep into the fear of the forest, its early days in storytelling, to more modern renditions. Sources used will be primarily books, and texts within books, such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Lord of the Rings, and much more.

Mythopoeic Awards Discussion, David Lenander, David Emerson

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

No abstract provided.

Seven Minutes In Hell: Hells In Fantasy Games, Nyssa Gilkey

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Join Nyssa Gilkey on a tour through several different fantasy video game depictions of hell. We’ll spend about seven (-ish) minutes looking around each hell or underworld before moving on, touring Helheim in God of War and God of War: Ragnarok, Hades and Elysium as portrayed in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey DLC, and the Duat of ancient Egypt in Assassin’s Creed: Origins DLC. With sufficient time and interest, we can tour other fantasy depictions of hell. Participants will be able to ask questions and discuss throughout the journey.

The Image Of Satan In Evangelical Children’S Fantasy, Melody Green

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Over the last few decades, niche publishers have presented several children’s fantasy series marketed as being “in the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien.” These publishers, however, are neither British, nor are they Anglican or Catholic. They are instead American Evangelical organizations, providing a space for faith-informed stories that wander somewhere between allegory and parable. Within the pages of these texts can be found not only the expected Christ-figures, but there are also Satan-figures and hellish landscapes much more likely to reflect concepts from Dante, Milton, and medieval witch-hunting guides than from the Bible, the text that evangelicals claim to be …

Hell As An Exploration Of Sin: A Comparison Of Alan Moore’S Providence To Dante’S Inferno, Zachary Rutledge

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In Alan Moore’s graphic novel Providence, Robert Black travels Lovecraftian New England and suffers a series of horrifying encounters—each an allusion to a Lovecraft story. These encounters contain direct references to various sins and taboos, thereby making explicit much of the sublimated sexuality in Lovecraft’s works. Therefore, Black’s journey constitutes not only a trip through Lovecraft’s mythology but also reads as a cataloguing of sins reminiscent of Dante’s passage through the levels of sin in Inferno. This paper identifies and explores the similarities between Dante and Black as examples of those who descend to the underworld along with a …

Political Demons: Society As Hell In Hellblazer And Sandman, Andrew Burt

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In the Hellblazer and Sandman comic book universes, hell depends on the writer’s worldview and often on the decade in which they are writing, appearing as a twisted version of a dreary regular world. Thus, this hell is often related to the contemporary Western political and cultural landscape as seen through Judeo-Christian conceptions of hell, demonology, and fears of everlasting torment and damnation, just like Dante’s Inferno and many other representations for centuries. In creating a hell that mirrors the modern world and accounts for contemporary folklore about the supernatural, the creators humanize the character’s quests and reify the fruitlessness …

Panel: The Rings Of Power Season 1: Underworlds, Overworlds, And Ocean Worlds, Tim Lenz, Leah Hagan, Grace Moone, Pablo Guss

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Now that the first of five planned seasons of Amazon’s big budget Second Age adaptation The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has aired, we will provide a retrospective of Season 1. We will compare Tolkien’s Second Age writings with the realized version in the show, including how the writers and showrunners have interpreted certain specific passages from the texts, and where significant departures were made for sake of adaptation. We will highlight themes of the season, as well as specific characters, relationships, and settings that have resonated with audiences, and speculate on where the series could potentially …

Who The Hell Is Helen Of Sparta?, Nyssa Gilkey

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The rising popularity of Greek mythology is due in some part to female authors such as Madeline Miller and Natalie Haynes lending a fresh perspective to the Homeric tradition. However, these female authors tend to actually reduce the importance of one of the most important female characters of the Trojan War: Helen. Helen of Sparta has been an enigma to writers throughout the last 3000 years, her story changing with each iteration and era. Since Homer’s Iliad, the most beautiful woman in the world has been victim and villain, strong and weak willed. She has chosen husbands, and been …

Pullman’S Problematic Paradise: Dissolving Into Dust, David E. Isaacs

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In the His Dark Materials trilogy, Phillip Pullman has openly positioned himself as the anti-C.S. Lewis who attempts to embed the gospel of atheism through his fantasy novels. Pullman recasts classics such as Paradise Lost and Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven & Hell so that humans triumph over the oppressive Authority by learning that sinning is simply enjoying life. This paper will specifically explore Pullman’s depictions of the underworld and his alternative vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven in The Amber Spyglass, examining Pullman’s attempts to assure readers that by rejecting Christian views of the final translation, one can …

Hellish Landscapes In J.R.R. Tolkien’S Legendarium, Willow Dipasquale

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium is rich with magical and mythological elements—enchanted rings, powerful wizards, stories told long ago—and near-Biblical struggles of good over evil, power over life and death, and the inexorable passage of time. The Halls of Mandos in Valinor even have echoes of the “afterlife,” serving as a liminal place for the spirits of Elves to await their next destination. Interestingly, though, a “hell” in the classic sense (that is, a spiritual region of eternal torment and suffering) does not seem to truly exist in Tolkien’s imagined worlds. However, Tolkien does fill those worlds with hellish landscapes: Utumno and …

Planes Of Oblivion In The Elder Scrolls, Michael Barros

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The planes of Oblivion from The Elder Scrolls (TES) series are not explicitly Hell; they are any dimensions of reality which are not under control of the Aedra, the benevolent spiritual entities. As a result, these planes may be totally unknown, pleasant, chaotic, or horrifying, depending on who is in charge, reflecting the personality of its ruler. These planes are at the heart of the franchise, and the intrusion of the planes of Oblivion and its inhabitants is a constant in the series. The planes of Oblivion are a reimagining of Hell as a place of potential, rather than evil. …

Persephone Bites: Consumption In The Underworld, Erin Sledd

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

If you know one thing about Persephone, it is that she was abducted by Hades, held captive, and ate pomegranate seeds in the Underworld. Although Demeter rescued her daughter, she had to return for several months each year as a consequence of consuming the “Fruit of the Underworld.” But tasting those succulent ruby red seeds was not the first time she succumbed to desire—according to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter II, the first thing Persephone “bites” is a lure. Hades sets a trap: a flower with “one hundred stems of fragrant blossoms.” When Persephone grasps a stalk of this …

Only In Dying Life: The Production Of Hope And Peace, Taylor Johnson Guinan

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Unlike fantasy authors of previous generations like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien who wrote depictions of an afterlife that mirrored their personal faiths, modern children’s fantasy authors of the last thirty years, such as Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Phillip Pullman, Rick Riordan, J.K. Rowling, Jonathan Stroud, and Garth Nix, often merely use religious concepts as a way to depict the land of the dead. In their depictions, the land of the dead is a dark, terrible, and uninviting place. However, rather than ending on that dark point, these authors transition from fear to a sense of peace, acceptance, …

Through Sauron’S Eye: Hell, Arda Unmarred, Arda Marred, And Arda Healed According To The Maia Formerly Known As Mairon, Cameron Bourquein

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

From the beginning of Tolkien scholarship Mordor has been analyzed in light of its Hellish iconography; from the perspective of the narrative voice, what constitutes “Hell” in Middle-earth may seem clear. But what is Hell to Mordor’s chief inhabitant? What is Hell in Sauron’s Eye? The Rings of Power has brought Sauron into the spotlight by interpreting him not as depersonalized evil but as a character in his own right. Actor Charlie Vickers has shared how he developed this character for the screen, adapting characteristics taken directly from Tolkien’s own writings: Sauron’s love of order and his desire to “heal” …

The Lord Of The Rings & Dante’S Inferno: The Pilgrim’S Path—A Descent Into Hell, Hayden Bilbrey

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

This project explores the parallels between the journeys of Dante’s Pilgrim in Inferno and Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings. It asserts that these two examples are a variant of the hero’s journey, more akin to a divine pilgrimage. Through this analysis, each author’s use and repurposing of mythology and monsters to fit within a Christian narrative will be closely examined. Following the Pilgrim and Frodo, this project charts their voyages through hell (or hellish landscape) and the effects that has on each of them psychologically and spiritually. In essence, this project seeks to chart both external …

Hell As Colonizing Force: Postcolonialism In World Of Warcraft’S The Maw, Heather Bass

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The lore in World of Warcraft represents various global religions along with their multiple paths to the soul’s redemption. One quest asks players to approach various divintities and retrieve their sacred objects in order to save a paladin from the disease of undeath in desolate Icecrown. Scholars have also noticed World of Warcraft’s religious capacities with one such example being comparing Thrall to Jesus. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the World of Warcraft lore has its own version of Hell–a region known as the Maw–with its own version of Satan. The Maw is one of the new territories …

Hell Is School—And Other People—And Myself (But Mostly Other People): From Inferno To The Paradiso In The Scholomance Series By Naomi Novik, Nicole Duplessis

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In her novels A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate, and The Golden Enclaves, Naomi Novik constructs a world in which school is Hell and the outside world is Heaven—or so it seems from the inside. From the competition and internal hierarchies that exist between the students, to the monsters, or “mals” that stalk students and devour them for their “mana,” to the brutal lessons, harsh punishments, and presumed Darwinism of the school itself, the inside of the Scholomance seems the embodiment of Hell to the novel’s protagonist and central consciousness “El,” short for Galadriel, even as she …

Orpheus, The Harrowing Of Hell, And Mary Magdalene In The Tale Of Beren And Lúthien, Giovanni Carmine Costabile

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Tolkien has a wealth of precedents in giving his Orpheus and Eurydice, i.e., Beren and Lúthien, a happy ending. My paper proposes to survey these precedents in the Orphic tradition of Ancient Greece, in its subsequent Christening in late ancient and medieval literature, and in its connections with the Harrowing of Hell. Looking for a female Orpheus, an undiscussed parallelism is found in the figure of Mary Magdalene.

Cloaked In Shadow: The Biopolitics Of Sauron’S Middle-Hell, Journee Cotton

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

This paper considers hellish aspects of The Lord of the Rings through an environmental bioethical framework focusing on the intersection of biopolitics, race, and ecology. Key figures that shall be examined include Sauron, Saruman, Uruk-hai, and the body of Middle-earth. Sauron shall be read as a Hades figure; they share numerous connections, such as their domain is hell, influence over invisibility (Hades’ cloak and Sauron’s Ring), characterization of giver of gifts, possession of dead bodies, and connection to the earth’s fertility (or lack). Sauron’s possession over dead bodies arises from the necropolitical power he incites over bodies in his sphere …

Through The Mirror Darkly: Link’S Journey To Hell And The Inversion Of Hyrule In The Legend Of Zelda’S Underworlds, Alicia Fox-Lenz

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

When talking about The Legend of Zelda, “underworld” can have a variety of definitions, from simple dungeons hidden beneath the ground to fully realized parallel dimensions. Since the first entry in the franchise, the subterranean dungeons have been where the player character, Link, learns new skills and battles colossal monsters, honing the player’s skills and advancing the narrative. While not as ubiquitous as dungeons, since A Link to the Past, Zelda games have often included travel to parallel worlds, whether those are parallel dimensions or alternate time periods, where the rules and mores of Hyrule have been upended creating truly …

From Fiery Pit Of Divine Fire To The Watery Caves Of Primordial Chaos: The Realm Of The Dead, A New Hell Of A Place, Gaëlle Abaléa

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Representations of hell used to have an educational purpose, they conveyed edifying messages: be good or you will suffer for all eternity. Since the rise of psychology, the representations of Hell have evolved, losing their religious content yet, paradoxically, enduring. If they lost their religious purpose, they kept an ancient mythological architecture. Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series’ depiction of Hell is at the same time Greek, with the river running as an entry point to the realm of the dead, adding a Bachelardian influence to the picture with the omnipresence of water. Besides, travelling through hell is a journey through …

(Re)Visiting Hades: Depictions Of The Underworld In Virgil’S And Rick Riordan’S Work, Inês Vaz

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The hero’s journey is one of the most popular narrative patterns in storytelling, constituting a particular bridge between classical mythology and modern fantasy. One of the most captivating and poignant parts of the journey is none other than the descent to the underworld. Since the beginning of time, countless heroes have come and gone, but the underworld stays the same. Or does it . . .? From among the long tradition of classical texts that first helped bring the underworld to life, Virgil’s can be praised for providing some of the most detailed descriptions, as both Orpheus’ descent in Book …

Mythopoeic Society Awards Ceremony, Mythsoc Stewards

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Mythopoeic Society Awards Ceremony: Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth & Fantasy Studies, and Alexei Kondratiev Student Paper Award.

A Nostalgic Understanding Of Bureaucracy As Hell, Mayank Kejriwal

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

There is a wide body of visual and literary cultural media on interpreting the over-bureaucratization in modern society as modern hell. I argue that more recent post-modern depictions of bureaucracy, especially in visual media, have been less disquieting. Apple’s Severance tapped into deep uncertainties that modern workers face on issues like work-life balance and self-actualization, but if bureaucracy is present, it is well concealed under the gloss and efficiency of modern office buildings and technology. Hell is not the first word that comes to mind even when faced with such disquiet. Gone is the visceral fear associated with hell, or …

Timeless Moments: Russell Kirk, Charles Williams, And Stephen King On The Afterlife, Camilo Peralta

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In this paper, I apply the eschatological framework of Michigan historian and Gothic horror writer Russell Kirk to the depictions of Purgatory and Hell in certain novels by Charles Williams and Stephen King. Although these authors represent a wide range of faith traditions, there are a number of surprising similarities between their respective depictions of the afterlife, aspects of which Kirk’s notion of “timeless moments” can help to clarify. All three authors, for instance, characterize the afterlife as a state of mind that is nevertheless closely associated with specific physical locations such as a castle in Scotland, the city of …