by David Tollen | Sep 18, 2022 | The Postclassical Age (Medieval History), Linguistics & Philology
The new Tolkien series, “Rings of Power,” stirred up controversy by casting non-white actors. And the casting debate has awakened old claims that racism shapes Tolkien’s fiction. Those accusations rely on misunderstandings of The Lord of the Rings,...
by David Tollen | Aug 17, 2011 | Human Origins & the Paleolithic
It seems fantasies like The Lord of the Rings have cornered the market on “multi-species worlds”: on worlds peopled by dwarves, elves, goblins, and other not-quite-humans. Yet history has a claim on the multi-species world too. Or rather prehistory does. For most of...
