"Queer people in the UK have it so much better than before, and so much better than elsewhere, you should be grateful for the improvements and not keep whining about being oppressed." A paraphrased quote from a conversation I was in recently. Fuck this. www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/30/k...

"Perceiving the Perceiver: 'Viewing' Sauron Through the Gestalt Theory of Perception" uses Gestalt theory, the Gestalt laws of perception, & the reception theory of Wolfgang Iser to elucidate #Sauron as he appears in #LotR, #RoP, & #Tolkien 's wider legendarium. 🧵/ scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftol...

I am beyond humbled to have my very FIRST peer reviewed paper, “Perceiving the Perceiver: Viewing Sauron Through the Gestalt Theory of Perception” published alongside work from such amazing scholars! My thanks to the editors and peer reviewers for their hard work. (As always, JTR is free to read!)

Thanks for the mention @thetolkienist.com and for compiling all this!

My #Tolkien paper from Oxonmoot 2023 is published in JTR: "Wizard, Demon, Cat; Reformer, Satanist, Bureaucrat." I argue Sauron is present in 3 modes in the Legendarium, each reflecting three abandoned characters from The Book of Lost Tales (Tevildo + 2). scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftol...

... And Queer Lodgings will answer! We took a bit of a break because... well... *gestures broadly at everything* But we just had a planning session for our next few episodes, which should include some great guests!

I've been inactive on here for a few weeks and missed sharing this when it first went live. Go give the most recent Athrabeth episode a listen. @aranelparmadil.bsky.social does a fantastic job breaking down feminist scholarship on Tolkien, past, present, and (hopefully) future!

My book "Illustrating The Lord of the Rings in the Soviet Bloc" has a cover! Featuring artwork by the most excellent Yassen Panov, illustrator of the 1990-1991 Bulgarian #LOTR translation Vlastelinat Na Prastenite. The book is currently scheduled for release on September 18th #Tolkien

The paperback proceedings that contain @cameronbourquein.bsky.social and I’s paper on “Reading, Rending, and Queering the Web of Story with the Lens of ‘Con-creation’ and Process Theology” is now available! Get yourself a copy and enjoy some great work from some amazing #Tolkien scholars!

For WEEK 1 of America's #AuthoritarianCrisis, your reading assignment is #OnTyranny by @timothysnyder.bsky.social. Get it, study it well, & return to it often over the next four years. #AmericanId

"What weather they shall have is not ours to rule." Gandalf, "The Last Debate" The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien

One of the best parts of the season, IMO, though I hope we still get full on Celebrimbanner.

Sometimes I get angry at him, but I also love this man. ❤️

Excellent news! I’ve got a chapter in this volume on #Tolkien, folklore, and foxes! 🦊 🦊 🦊 The keynote lecture on which my chapter is based, can be accessed here: youtu.be/rAAYOnkVnwk (Apologies in advance for the ear worm!) @uofgfantasy.bsky.social @uofgartshums.bsky.social

My conference paper for the Mythopoeic Society OMS, "Sauron, Seduction, and the Queering Mechanism of the Ring", is finally available in print proceedings! Please keep in mind that this is very much a conference proceedings and not a finalized work, but here it is! dc.swosu.edu/mythpro/vol2...

I want to give a shout out to a recent episode of @resonantarc.bsky.social's podcast for touching on something I talked about at PCA National Conference last year: how the evolution of #FinalFantasy graphics from pixel art to near photo-real 3D changed a LITERARY experience into a CINEMATIC one. 🧵

I really appreciated this belated obit for Karon Wynn Fonstad, cartographer of the Tolkien Atlas (and the maps for Dragonriders of Pern!) and not only for this killer quote re the Tolkien Atlas, "It was like the Velvet Underground of fantasy mapmaking": www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/o...

People took all the wrong lessons from Tolkien (fantasy race determinism, long-prophesied return of the king, lore coming out your ears) and none of the right ones (subversive heroes who succeed through failure, overwhelming grief at the passing of an enchanted world).

The paper that @njspolk.bsky.social and I presented at @mythsoc.bsky.social OMS 3 last year has been published as a part of the conference proceedings! "Reading, Rending, and Queering the Web of Story with the Lenses of 'Con-creation' and Process Theology." Link and abstract in 🧵. #Tolkien

My #Mairon paper is published (link in 🧵). It was presented at Tolkien@UVM and GIFCon in 2023, and at Oxonmoot in 2024. “Mairon” is what got me back into #Tolkien fandom and scholarship, because what are you supposed to do when you learn #Sauron might have been called “precious”?

Thanks to Stef and Jude for this awesome recording experience. I had a wonderful time. I’ve enjoyed the Athrabeth podcast for a while so getting to appear on it to talk #Tolkien and #Sauron was kind of surreal!

If you listened to and enjoyed yesterday’s episode of the Athrabeth podcast where I talk about my #Tolkien (mostly #Sauron) work, check out my new Substack. Working on some #RingsOfPower related pieces. theroadtoardahealed.substack.com

Thanks to Stef and Jude for this awesome recording experience. I had a wonderful time. I’ve enjoyed the Athrabeth podcast for a while so getting to appear on it to talk #Tolkien and #Sauron was kind of surreal!

Reminder that in order to get early bird pricing for #Westmoot, you need to register before the end of the week! #Tolkien @tolkiensociety.org www.tolkiensociety.org/events/westm...

Check this out!

I am officially a Glasgow resident! And have used pretty much all my savings (not put side for a very important surgery) for moving again, so every little bit of helps!

Lots of very good stuff in this thread!

Father and son, 1928. Christopher Tolkien is around three years old here.

My 8th book is now available, from McFarland Books mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-...

Welcome new followers/Twitter refugees! We're thrilled to have you here after we were graciously included in a couple of JRRT "Starter Packs". Just to reintroduce ourselves, Queer Lodgings is a Tolkien podcast with 3 Queer co-hosts - Alicia, Leah, and Grace. 🧵

I wish this work wasn’t deeply relevant right now. Alas. Please give it a listen.

New episode alert! https://buff.ly/3Z8fd75 We are so excited to bring you this interview with actor Adam Brown - Ori the dwarf- as part of our series on Tolkien adaptations! Adam graciously joined to discuss his experiences as a gay man in the production of the Hobbit movies.

Easter egg: the name of the file for this project was "Sauron and John Wayne"

Sound on! If I never make anything else worthwhile, I will have made this. This is my Silmaril. I shall never make another. (Brought to you by my husband who, during the reveal, quoted John Wayne from his Greatest Story Ever Told cameo.) #TROPspoilers #RingsOfPower youtu.be/pp6SgFHrOqw

The Lord of Gifts sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. The Twelve Days of Sauron. Like the Twelve Days of Christmas but with fewer birds and more deception and torture. A revised 2 year anniversary version in the lead up to The Rings Of Power season two. Link in thread.

This Saturday evening I'll be virtually presenting my Sauron-centric paper "The Nameless Enemy: How Do You Solve a Problem Like 'Mairon'" at the Tolkien Society's Oxonmoot '51—one last time before I work on producing a draft for possible publication. 🤞

My Leeds paper (coming up in just over two weeks) is a bit of a continuation of this one, presented nearly a year ago now at MythSoc OMS. Apologies for how fast I am speaking in this recording. Let's just say I was astoundingly nervous! dc.swosu.edu/oms/oms2/sch...

The Call for Papers for Mythcon 53: Fantasies of the Middle Lands is now up at the Mythopoeic Society website! 2-5 August 2024 in Minneapolis. Check out details and registration at the link below. www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mc53...

Just received word that my research ethics application for my PhD thesis was APPROVED. If you are a nonreligious Tolkien fan who'd be interested in talking to me for 1-2 hours about why you love The Lord of the Rings, keep your eyes on this space! 🥼📖🐉

I tend to a "free will is sacrosanct" view re: the Legendarium. Another quote from tinyurl.com/con-creation : "As scriptless actors in the Drama, the very choices of the Children of Eru are their art, their sub-creations, and that makes their very choices infinitely important."

Hold the phone! Silent Hill 2 is a faërian drama. 🤯

"[F]irstly [...] #Tolkien places responsibility for the completion of the quest on Frodo’s choice to extend pity to Gollum, and secondly [...] he describes the action of the climactic scene in consistently passive ways." tinyurl.com/con-creation Some quick thoughts on passivity 🧵

I love this art style! So beautifully done.

I've grown so much as a scholar since I wrote this. Initially written to refute a Lord of the Rings reading I didn't care for about events at the Cracks of Doom, it evolved into something more. This was the first place I explored "con-creation" tinyurl.com/con-creation

It's crucial for scholars and fans to confront the ways Tolkien can and has been appropriated by the radical right. Too much discourse handwaves—or actively encourages—sexism, racism, and religious chauvinism.

🧙‍♂️ #Tolkientober #TolkienTrewsday #TolkienTuesday #Tolkien 📆 Week 36 theme: “Horror” 🎃💀 It’s Halloween! 👻🦇 🗨️ Welcome to Tolkien Trewsday! 🧵 1/

It's here, it's queer, it's kinky, and it's admittedly Sauron-biased. Many thanks to Alicia, Grace, & Leah for inviting me to talk about the ship that blew my mind when I re-entered Tolkien fandom & to Mercury for being an amazing co-guest! Love you all!

Finally had a few hours to update my scholarship website and move it somewhere where I could fully design the site myself. I imaging there are still plenty of kinks that need to be worked out, but I think it's mostly there. Come check out the new site! cameronbourquein.com

Do you love linguistics? Do you love Tolkien? Do you love Digital Humanities? Do you love Australian accents? If you like any or all of these things, you need to check out @digitaltolkien.com and his YouTube channel.