What do Maps Mean to You?
J.R.R. Tolkien—writer, philologist, and academic—best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, is recognized by fantasy readers and scholars for his immersive world-building and detailed mapping of his secondary world, Middle-earth. In this Zoom BookHour, hosted by Jun Qiang of the University of York, Professor Robert T. Tally Jr. builds upon Tolkien’s quotation, “I wisely started with a map” (Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien) to discuss his text, Topophrenia: Place Narrative, and the Spatial Imagination, regarding Tolkien’s works and the “literary cartography” of his world. USSO’s BookHour with Robert T. Tally Jr. discussed the intersection between the novel, ‘geocriticism’, spatiality studies, and literary cartography—or how we organize our space through writing—in relation to Tolkien’s physical and figurative mapmaking. While Topophrenia is not particularly written on Tolkien himself, Tally’s BookHour explored the possibilities of Tolkien’s literary cartography and how both the literal and figurative maps deepen […]