Watch this Tolkein expert's master class on every race in Middle Earth

Cory Olsen, aka The Tolkein Professor, explains how Tolkein's hobbit stories got fused with his earlier mythologic work around languages he created to become the Tolkein universe inhabited by Hobbits, Men, Ents, Elves, Dwarves, and what-not.

Olsen teaches at Signum University, which will offer a separate course in the fall titled The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien:

Place is one of the defining features of J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium; Middle-earth is arguably its most constant and central character. How and why did he build what he called a secondary world, and in what ways did our primary world help to shape its landscape, geography and cultures? How does his work relate to contemporary understanding of the cultural landscape, to ideas of nationhood, and to environmental issues?

John Garth, influential Tolkien biographer and scholar, will act as your guide in this deep dive into the themes he researched for his latest book, The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth.

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