2009 Tolkien Institute
Dear Colleague Letter and Application
We would like to invite you to join the Company we wish to create this summer as 25 Institute Scholars join fifteen Tolkienists and us on a five-week journey. Our journey begins in an agricultural county that has the quiet rural ambiance of the green northeastern part of Texas. The journey will focus on the minds, hearts, and spirits of our Company as we explore the complex and varied world of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth through the primary text, the recent films by Peter Jackson, and the scholarship about the many sources that Tolkien drew on in the more than thirty years he spent creating what many see as one of the most complex of "alternate worlds." While this journey may seem to be daunting at first, we will do our best to guide our group through the challenges of exploring this world which, of course, as all the best "fantasies" do, will show us more about our own world and about ourselves.
2009 Dear Colleague Letter [PDF]
2009 Application [PDF]
