Tolkien Courses at Mythgard Institute This Fall

The Mythgard Institute is offering two twelve week courses on Tolkien this Autumn.

Philology Through Tolkien is an introduction to comparative philology through Tolkien’s life and works.  Students will study old Germanic languages and their literatures and cover select topics in Germanic comparative grammar (e.g. Grimm’s Law), as well as related matters, such as Celtic philology and Tolkien’s invented languages.

Tolkien and Tradition will explore how Tolkien created his own medieval tales.  Works from Tolkien will be paired with their inspirational counterparts and will include ”The Story of Kullervo” (with the Finnish Kalevala), Sigurd and Gudrún (with the Icelandic Eddas) and The Fall of Arthur (with the Alliterative Morte Arthure and the Stanzaic Morte Arthure).

The Mythgard Institute is an online institution that offers challenging, engaging classes, taught by world-class teachers and leading scholars in order to provide students with new opportunities to study works by authors like J.R.R. Tolkien, Edgar Allen Poe, William Gibson and others seriously and with academic rigor, either for their own enrichment or towards the achievement of a degree.  The Institute offers language and literature courses at the master’s level and offers concentrations in areas such as Tolkien studies, medieval literature, and fantasy literature.  The Mythgard Institute’s parent, Signum University, is in the process of acquiring full certification and accreditation and expects to be able to award MA degrees in English literature by 2014.