In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam discuss chapters 20 and 21 of the Quenta Silmarillion, which include an account of the Fifth Battle and the tragic tale of Turin Turambar.

Primary sources:

The Silmarillion | The Lord of the Rings | The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

Books we've been reading:

The Wages of Destruction

Ride The Pink Horse

The Long Goodbye

Gilead

The Sot-Weed Factor

The Fort Bragg Cartel

The Age of Empire

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In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam joined friend of the show Ethan Colburn for an episode of the Cineflek Podcast about Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

For a great documentary with more information on the making of the movie, check out "An Exhaustive History of Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings" from Folding Ideas on YouTube.

For more on adaptation rights to Tolkien's work, listen to our episode from earlier this year "State of the Estate."

For more of our opinions on movies, you can follow each of us on Letterboxd: Ethan (an actual Letterboxd influencer), Kenny, Sam.

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In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Cami Agan about the 2018 volume Beren and Luthien and about the textual history of the tale. This episode is a companion piece to our previous episode on chapter 19 of The Silmarillion, which you can find here.

Cami Agan is the Distinguished Professor of Language and Literature at Oklahoma Christian University and a prominent scholar of Tolkien's First Age.

More Cami:

Lúthien Tinúviel and Bodily Desire in the Lay of Leithian

Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth

Hearkening to the Other: A Certeauvian Reading of the Ainulindale

Also mentioned:

Moore - A Song of Greater Power: Tolkien's Construction of Lúthien Tinúviel

Whitaker - Corrupting Beauty: Rape Narrative in The Silmarillion

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In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam discuss chapter 19 of the Quenta Silmarillion, the incredible story of Beren and Luthien. Included is also a discussion of current events affecting Sam as a resident of Washington DC -- listeners with an allergy to that sort of thing can skip to 17:25 to get to "the good stuff."

Primary sources:

The Silmarillion | The Lord of the Rings | Beren and Luthien | The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

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In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Bret Devereaux about the Siege of Gondor and the Battle of Helm's Deep, including discussions of pre-modern logistics, cavalry charges, flails, command structures, battle speeches, and much more.

Bret Devereaux is an ancient and military historian who currently teaches as a Teaching Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University. You can find him on Twitter and Bluesky, or at his blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry.

More Bret:

Blog series on Siege of Gondor

Blog series on Helm's Deep

Blog series on logistics

Interview with Patrick Wyman on the Punic Wars

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In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Ali Mirzabayati about death and mourning in Tolkien's work. Ali published his thesis Death as a Gift: A Heroic Celebration of Life in The Lord of the Rings in December 2024.

Ali Mirzabayati is a scholar of medieval literature and modern fantasy, including Tolkien's legendarium.

More Ali:

Mourning and Melancholia in The Lord of the Rings

Sounds of Battle and Battle of Sounds: Belliphonic in Tolkien

Beowulf and Théoden: Differing Teaching Methods of Hrothgar and Gandalf

Further reading/listening:

Amendt-Raduege - The Sweet and the Bitter: Death and Dying in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

Vaninskaya - Fantasies of Time and Death

Freud - On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia

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In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Lee Konstantinou about Tolkien's right-wing (or neo-reactionary) fans in Silicon Valley. Lee's essay Mythic Capital: How Tolkien is Whispering in the Ears of America's Most Powerful Men, is out now from Arc. Long-time listeners will know that this is our third time talking about this subject -- our first episode on the subject, from November 2022, can be found here, and our second, from July 2024 about then-VP nominee JD Vance, can be found here.

Lee Konstantinou is a Professor of English at the University of Maryland whose writing has been featured in Slate, Arc, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.

More Lee:

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Strangers in a Strange Land: Science-fictional Notes on the "Abundance" Agenda

Cool Characters: Irony and American Fiction

Something is Broken In Our Science Fiction

Further reading/listening:

Tally (Spectre, 8/24) - Tolkien's Deplorable Cultus

Canavan (Dissent, 1/25) - Tolkien Against The Grain

Kakutani (NYT, 5/25) - Why Silicon Valley's Most Powerful People Are So Obsessed With Hobbits

Douthat (NYT, 6/25) (audio) - Peter Thiel and the Antichrist

Gellman (The Atlantic, 11/23) - Peter Thiel is Taking A Break From Democracy

Alexander (Substack, 5/25) - Moldbug Sold Out

Gabor (Phenomenal World, 2/25) - How To DOGE USAID

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In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam discuss chapters 17 and 18 of the Quenta Silmarillion, including the coming of men into Beleriand, the death of Fingolfin, and Hurin and Huor's visit to Gondolin.

Primary sources:

The Silmarillion | The Lord of the Rings | The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

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In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Robert Tally about his new book The Mismeasure of Orcs: A Critical Reassessment of Tolkien's Demonized Creatures, out now from McFarland Books.

Robert Tally is a Professor of English at Texas State University. He's written extensively about Tolkien and Marxist literary criticism.

More Rob:

Representing Middle-earth: Tolkien, Form, and Ideology

JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit: A Critical Companion

Let Us Now Praise Famous Orcs: Simple Humanity in Tolkien's Inhuman Creatures

Demonizing The Enemy, Literally: Tolkien, Orcs, and the Sense of the World Wars

The Southern Phoenix Triumphant: Richard Weaver, or, the Origins of Contemporary U.S. Conservatism

Also mentioned:

Bould/Mieville (ed.) - Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction

Croft et. al (ed.) - Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey

Fonstad - Atlas of Middle-Earth

Jameson - Archaeologies of the Future

Jameson - Fables of Aggression

Jameson - The Political Unconscious

Lukas - The Historical Novel

Mills - The Wretched of Middle-Earth: An Orkish Manifesto

Mohler (Existential Comics) - The Council of Elrond

Sofge - Orc Holocaust

Stuart - Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-Earth

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In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Stephen Yandell about Beowulf and the many ways it inspired Tolkien.

Steve Yandell is a medievalist and Tolkien scholar who has been a Professor of English at Xavier University since 2003. He regularly teaches courses on both Tolkien and medieval literature, including Beowulf.

More Steve:

"A Pattern Which Our Nature Cries Out For": The Medieval Tradition of the Ordered Four in the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien

Cruising Faery: Queer Desire in Giles, Niggle, and Smith

Selection from Math Son of Mathonwy, from the Mabinogi

The translations:

Tolkien - Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary

Heaney - Beowulf: A New Verse Translation

Headley - Beowulf: A New Translation

Primary sources:

Tolkien - Beowulf: The Monsters and The Critics (PDF)

The Lord of the Rings

The Silmarillion

Also mentioned:

Howarth - 1066: The Year of the Conquest

Leyerle - The Interlace Structure of Beowulf

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