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Who we are | Meeting schedule | How to join | For more information | Constitution | Links and items of interest
The Tolkien Society at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was founded in September 1966. It has been meeting once a month ever since (during the first several years, twice a month), with a very few misses here and there (e.g., there were a couple of years when the group did not meet during the summer, but usually it did). In January, 2001, we changed our name to the Tolkien and Fantasy Society to reflect our broad interests better.
We discuss:
Our journal, ORCRIST, appeared irregularly, and has not been published since 1977, though we still may revive it sometime. Eight issues were published, now mostly out of print, though copies of numbers 3, 4, and 5 (which were co-published as TOLKIEN JOURNAL numbers 11, 13, and 14 respectively) may still be available from the Mythopoeic Society, for those who are interested. There is a set in the Memorial Library on the UW-Madison campus, as well as in a number of other libraries across the U. S.
Meetings will be held on Sundays
beginning at 7:30 p.m. and concluding between
9:30-10:00 p.m. (CST). Union South,
227 N. Randall Avenue, on the UW-Madison
campus, has now been closed for rebuilding (expected to open in 2011). Meetings will be held in various places.
To help our discussion of this posthumously published (2007) romance, Richard West will read his paper on "Lack of Counsel Not of Courage: J. R. R. Tolkien's Critique of the Heroic Ethos in The Children of Hurin".
Tolkien's Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun (2009) contains poems of power and passion (as Paul Thomas aptly describes them) written in modern English but using a traditional Old Norse verse form. They are best appreciated when read aloud, so we shall do that, taking turns to read (as medieval Icelanders did reading sagas on long winter nights), interspersing commentary and answering questions as we go along.
Discussion of the use of ghosts and the graveyard setting in Peter S. Beagle's A Fine and Private Place (1960), Terry Pratchett's Johnny and the Dead (1993), and Neil Gaiman's Newbery-award winner The Graveyard Book (2008). This meeting will be held in room 301 of the Kurt F. Wendt Library, 215 North Randall Avenue.
Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" is available in many places, such as
We're still discussing what topic to take up this time. Celebration of Tolkien's birthday (he would have been 118 on this day). This meeting will probably be held in the Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street. Check "Today in the Union" for the exact room either on one of the bulletin boards in the Union or on their website, http://www.union.wisc.edu.
Simply show up to meetings! There are no dues, no requirements, no hazings, no pledges. If you are active in the fantasy and/or science fiction community, feel free to bring items of interest to meetings; we always have a "News and Notes" time in each meeting.
For more information on the UW Tolkien Society, feel free to send us email at tolksoc@stdorg.wisc.edu.
Here is a listing of the contents of all published issues of Orcrist, the UWTS's journal.
And here is a listing of past meeting topics.
UWTS member Dorothea Salo runs a mailing list on the topic of Tolkien's invented languages. To learn more, read the Elfling list's web page.
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