Have you ever wondered how J.R.R. Tolkien’s compelling and detailed fictional world developed? Would you like to study how stories and mythologies grow? Are you interested to read Tolkien’s early works published in The History of Middle-earth series, but you’ve been a little intimidated about beginning? Do you find that The Silmarillion just doesn’t contain enough names to suit you?
Join Corey Olsen, the Tolkien Professor and the president of the Mythgard Institute, for an in-depth nine-week study of The Book of Lost Tales, Part I, the first volume in Christopher Tolkien’s priceless History of Middle-earth series. As part of the Mythgard Academy series, the class is tuition-free and open to the public. The first 100 participants for each session are able to participate in the discussion live, and both video and audio recordings of the classes will be available on the Mythgard web page, through the Mythgard podcast feed, and on their iTunesU course.
Like all Mythgard Academy classes, this course is made possible by the generosity of everyone who supported our fundraising campaign last fall through Indiegogo. The topics of our Academy classes are nominated and elected entirely by our generous donors. After their first foray into science fiction with Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, the Mythgard Academy electors have turned back to Tolkien, choosing to follow up this winter’s popular study of Unfinished Tales with The Book of Lost Tales I.
If you missed our fundraising campaign but would still like to take part in our class voting process to decide our future topics for the rest of the year, it isn’t too late! Check out the terms as laid out in the Indiegogo campaign (linked above), and then make your own contribution to us directly.
– Dr. Corey Olsen
The Mythgard Academy Facebook page will be used as an inter-class discussion board, and the first class starts tonight at 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Click here for more details and for the full class schedule.
