Interdisciplinary in approach, Tolkien the Medievalist provides a fresh perspective on J. R. R. Tolkien's Medievalism. In fifteen essays, eminent scholars and new voices explore how Professor Tolkien responded to a modern age of crisis - historical, academic and personal - by adapting his scholarship on medieval literature to his own personal voice. The four sections reveal the author influenced by his profession, religious faith and important issues of the time; by his relationships with other medievalists; by the medieval sources that he read and taught, and by his own medieval mythologizing.
Jane Chance, the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Chair in English at Rice University, has taught medieval literature for forty years, first, at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, after receiving her Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois in 1971, and then at Rice University, beginning in 1973. Former first President and founder of the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages, Inc., Chance has published twenty-one books and nearly a hundred articles and book reviews, on mythography and the Latin influence on medieval literary culture, Old and Middle English literature, Chaucer, medieval women, and modern medievalism (Tolkien in particular). Winner of many awards and national fellowships, she has edited three book series, most recently the Praeger Series on the Middle Ages, and served as Vice President of the Texas Faculty Association. She serves on several editorial boards, including those for PMLA and postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies.
Jane Chance lives in Galveston and pursues her interests in photography and historic architecture. She lives in a house built by Sam Houston's great nephew, Major Samuel Moore Penfield, which has been awarded Landmark status by the city of Galveston and the Texas Historic Commission. She won the Galveston Historic Foundation award for historical preservation in the construction of her new garage.
