Prof. Michael D. C. Drout explains that for J.R.R. Tolkien, words work on different levels: there is pleasure in sound patterns, but real power is in the way words act on people & how people act. Words are not magical. Drout talks about Saruman’s voice, lying, and how both left-wingers and right-wingers claim Tolkien is on their side: each revolts against domination. Fantasy cannot provide consolation for loss, but can give shape to grief and point to a world where there is comfort.

* Prof. Drout’s faculty page

* Prof. Drout on Tolkien Gateway

* The Tower and the Ruin on Bookfinder (buy used! buy local!)

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Just some raw and random thoughts about how we don't have any plan for getting out of the mess we've gotten ourselves into.

Welcome to the final show—of this series. At last! Join me as I spend an hour (yeah, an hour; sorry!) looking back over what I’ve learned. Or maybe jump to 1:03 to hear what I think we should do about this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, okay? If you watch the whole thing, you'll hear me sing. And at the end, I talk about the new, upcoming series, all about J. R. R. #Tolkien! Thanks for going on this journey with me.

* If you like this work, please support it by joining my Author's Circle https://buymeacoffee.com/higginssorina  

Some other links to things mentioned in the episode: 

"No Kings No Coherence" https://sorinahiggins.substack.com/p/no-kings-and-no-coherence

Sørina reviews Owen Barfield's view of controversy as two separate publics with different definitions of words, then she compares defintions of terms from guests throughout the "Bad Words" series. She concludes that arguments in America today do not result from conflicting defitions, but from disagreements about what examples fit into categories. Sadly, she doesn't have a solution to offer. 

Support this work: https://buymeacoffee.com/higginssorina Read Sørina's Substack: https://sorinahiggins.substack.com/ Hire Dr. Higgins as an editor: https://wyrdhoard.com/

In this final interview of the "Bad Words" series, Sørina Higgins interviews Larry Rosen, host of "The Enemies Project," about how to help people see that our enemies are just ourselves on the other side. Larry explains what makes people into activists and how everyone is motivated by a need for belonging. He distinguishes "platforming" from "discussion." They talk about power differentials, morality as a weapon of war, cooperation in an integrated society, and how to resist the enemy-makers. They explore what kind of language is more effective and for what ends. His advice is: Don't convince the other person; just understand them.

Dr. Taylor Jones of the popular YouTube channel  ⁨@languagejones⁩  joins Dr. Higgins to nerd out over pronouns, Black American English, and politeness in Persian. They sing the praises of the scientific method and critical thinking, then lament thought-terminating clichés. They talk about the social stigma attached to some accents, get passionate about immigration, and warn against gossip--yet they can't define what a language is, or a dialect, or even a word--but they do reflect upon Kabbalah, string theory, and whether the universe is fundamentally made up of music, so that's exciting!

I was honored to be on Theology in Pieces with two of my friends to talk about the Inklings, imagination, magic, and rhetoric. Visit https://www.theologyinpieces.com/2100783/episodes/18708410-72-magic-myths-and-imagination-as-tools-of-resistance-with-dr-sorina-higgins to get this section in context and follow the show!

Today Dr. Higgins enjoys a conversation with her first Orthodox guest, The Very Reverend Father Aaron Warwick. After defining and describing Orthodoxy, they share their love of awe-inspiring, embodied, sensory worship services. They unpack how honoring everyone's freedom of speech leads to greater understanding and why it's important to confront ideas with courage and grace. Fr. Aaron explains how the Bible describes a principled anarchy, but our fallen nature requires government restraints. What happens when we get a king (or any supreme human ruler)? They tax us, take away our children, make them fight our wars.... He recalls times people have been angry about political references in his sermons, but emphasizes that no political party is reliable or Christian. They discuss reading Scripture aloud, the challenges of marriage, and the horrors of the genocide in Gaza. 

This one's a bit fiery! In this solo episode, Dr. Higgins get a bit riled up as she reflects on the podcast as process, sharing emotional and conceptual difficulties with this series on Bad Words. She laments the decline in healthy pluralism, warns against "both sides" rhetoric, and goes on a rant against American pastors who are contributing to "us vs. them" attack language. She urges pastors to seek to fill their churches with whomever they think is the problem, then closes with some thoughts on why courteous discourse is effective and what we can do to fight against things we deplore.