30 Episodes

  1. The ‘Key-spring’ of The Lord of the Rings?

    Published: 3/1/2025

  2. C.S. Lewis’s Influence on The Lord of the Rings

    Published: 3/1/2025

  3. Medievalism in the Margins: Echoes of Anglo-Saxon England in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings – From Page to Screen

    Published: 3/1/2025

  4. A Harmless Vice: Tolkien’s Invented Languages

    Published: 3/1/2025

  5. The authors and styles of 'The Lord of the Rings'

    Published: 3/1/2025

  6. J. R. R. Tolkien and G. B. Smith: Two Forgotten War Poets?

    Published: 3/1/2025

  7. Tolkien as Interpreter and Transformer of Culture: The Making of 'The Lord of the Rings' as a Modern Book

    Published: 3/1/2025

  8. J.R.R. Tolkien: The Making of a Philologist

    Published: 12/11/2023

  9. Tolkien and Beowulf

    Published: 12/11/2023

  10. A Heroic History of the Elves: Tolkien’s “lost” Mythology of England?

    Published: 12/11/2023

  11. How to write 'The Lord of the Rings'

    Published: 12/8/2023

  12. Is Jin Yong 'China's Tolkien'?

    Published: 9/6/2021

  13. Arthur Rackham at Trinity College

    Published: 7/30/2021

  14. The Last of the Titans

    Published: 7/27/2021

  15. The Saga of Eric the Unlucky

    Published: 7/20/2021

  16. Edward Lear and Fantasy

    Published: 7/18/2021

  17. Werewolves in Medieval Literature vs Modern TV

    Published: 7/6/2021

  18. Morte D'Arthur Murals in the Oxford Union

    Published: 6/28/2021

  19. Violet Needham

    Published: 6/22/2021

  20. What is the 'Silmarillion'?

    Published: 4/19/2021

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Fantasy Literature has emerged as one of the most important genres over the past few decades and now enjoys extraordinary levels of popularity. The impact of Tolkien’s Middle-earth works and the serialisation of George Martin’s ‘Game of Thrones’ books has moved these and their contemporaries into mainstream culture. As the popularity grows so does interest in the roots of fantasy, the main writers and themes, and how to approach these texts. Oxford is a natural home to fantasy literature with those who worked or studied here having written so many famous and influential texts (e.g. Lewis Carroll (C. L. Dodgson), C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Susan Cooper, Diana Wynne Jones, Alan Garner, and Philip Pullman to name but a few) – leading to the notion of an ‘Oxford School of Fantasy’. These lectures, short talks, and interviews seek to take listeners into these works and these writers and beyond. All material released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ . [Artwork by Minjie Su.]