Signum Symposia Signum University

This recording from May 10, 2024.


Signum University Graduate School presents Thesis Theater with Shannon Choudhari on Tuesday, May 10, 2024 at 5pm ET.


“I wonder what you’ve been up to?”: The Notion Club Papers and Tolkien’s Vision of Creative Mysticism


Since it’s publication in 1992, Tolkien’s unfinished time-travel story The Notion Club Papers has received relatively infrequent critical attention for its depiction of time and time-travel, as well as for its representation of Tolkien’s Númenor legend. This thesis seeks to counter the dominant view – that the tale’s intricate plot, narrative complexity, and unfinished state overshadow the “real” story of Númenor, resulting in a work that is both difficult and ultimately unsatisfying. Beginning with a reconsideration of the story as written (rather than as it might have been), this study explores how narrative and stylistic strategies work together to convey a distinctive portrait of the sub-creative artist that is defined by the very techniques that make the story itself uniquely effective. It begins with a consideration of the tale’s climax and thematic focus, arguing for the threshold of creative mystic experience, rather than Númenor, as the crux of the story. Further examining the unique meeting of structure and theme, the study then moves into an analysis of narrative form, demonstrating how the metafictional interface and complex embedding of narrative layers engage in a carefully balanced rhetoric of authentication, while also working to simultaneously destabilize assumptions about reality. Further entanglement of the Papers and its vision with the Primary World through elements of metacommentary and biographical allegory are seen to break through narrative boundaries, resulting in a unique vehicle that is perhaps best suited to deliver Tolkien’s radical vision of creative mysticism – a vision that is consistent, if somewhat obscured, within his larger body of fictional and personal writings. The complexity of these features which others have perceived as failings are here reinterpreted as the “essentials” of the tale, themselves revelatory of a sweeping assertion of visionary power and overlapping realities, where personalities are subsumed and the Primary World itself transformed.


About Signum Thesis Theaters
Each of our master’s students writes a thesis at the end of their degree program, exploring a topic of their choice. The Thesis Theater is their opportunity to present their research to a general audience, and answer questions. All are welcome to attend!


Learn about Signum University’s mission, leadership and more: https://signumuniversity.org/about/.


Want to enjoy Signum’s educational offerings? Start here! https://signumuniversity.org/non-degr....
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This recording from May 7, 2024.


Signum University Graduate School presents Thesis Theater with Trevor Brierly on Tuesday, May 7, 2024 at 2pm ET, on the subject of Tolkien's "Vision of Faërie" in "Smith of Wootton Major."


Tolkien's story "Smith of Wootton Major", written in 1965, and an accompanying essay written at the same time, provide a rich understanding of Tolkien's "Vision of Faërie" that goes significantly beyond earlier critical works such "On Fairy-stories" and "Mythopoeia". A close reading and analysis approach to "Smith" and the essay indicate that Tolkien saw Faërie as necessary, universal, beneficent and transformative to humanity. In order to fully appreciate what "Smith" has to say about Faërie, it must be understood that "Smith" is neither an allegory nor primarily autobiographical and should be seen as a "fairy-story", a story about a human journeying in the Faërie realm. The essay adds to our understanding of Faërie as it tells a parallel story concerning Faërie intervening in Wootton Major, to restore contact with the enchantment of Faërie that is being lost. "Smith" and the essay together are important for understanding Tolkien's increasingly sophisticated and elevated view of Faërie, which he claimed was "as necessary for the health and complete functioning of the Human as is sunlight for physical life."


About the Presenter:
N. Trevor Brierly is a software engineer with more than 25 years of experience in the industry. He has a background in literature with an MLIS from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in English from George Mason University. His research interests include worldbuilding in speculative fiction, Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Le Guin, Shakespeare, and the Renaissance. He has presented working papers on “Lord of the Rings”, “Dune”, “King Lear”, worldbuilding, and other topics. He has published an essay “Worldbuilding Design Patterns in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien” in “Sub-creating Arda” (Walking Tree Publishers, 2019) and is co-editor of “Discovering Dune” from McFarland Books (2022). He lives in Northern Virginia and enjoys books, jazz, tea and cats.


About Signum Thesis Theaters
Each of our master’s students writes a thesis at the end of their degree program, exploring a topic of their choice. The Thesis Theater is their opportunity to present their research to a general audience, and answer questions. All are welcome to attend!


Registration is open for the Summer 2024 semester until May 10th! To view our upcoming courses: https://signumuniversity.org/degree-p....


Learn about Signum University’s mission, leadership and more: https://signumuniversity.org/about/.


Want to enjoy Signum’s educational offerings? Start here! https://signumuniversity.org/non-degr....
Support Signum Symposia

This recording from April 11, 2024.


Signum MA student Timothy Francis will present his thesis “Administrative Art as Genre in Kafka, Tooker, and Ravn” and respond to questions from the audience in an interactive Thesis Theater. The discussion will be facilitated by Timothy’s thesis supervisor, Dr. Gabriel Schenk.


Abstract
This thesis explores bureaucracy through the works of three artists working in different media: prose, visual art, and bureaucracy itself as a medium. Rooted in an understanding of what constitutes bureaucracy and administration and previous works on the subject, it seeks to explore what might constitute bureaucratic art and what the aims of such an art might be. Building upon existing literature and prior artistic explorations of bureaucracy and their analyses, this thesis aims to understand bureaucratic art and unravel its significance and potential impacts. The works are considered individually and collectively, offering multifaceted insights from different perspectives. By navigating the labyrinth of bureaucratic structures and creative interpretation, this thesis endeavors to shed light on the intersections between bureaucracy and artistry, ultimately paving the way for a deeper appreciation and comprehension of administrative or bureaucratic art.


About the Presenter
Timothy Francis is a recovering bureaucrat, former public accountant in tax law, and sometimes musician who applies his collaborative and creative lenses outside of the public sector and has been Composer-in-Residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts developing and exploring creative collaborative frameworks for performers, lyricists, and composers. His compositions have been performed worldwide including at the Bregenzer Festspiele by the Vienna Symphony, Carnegie Hall by the New York Pops and the Berlin Film Festival. At Signum University, as a Language and Literature Master’s student, his focus has been on discovering works old and new, and exploring various critical lenses, approaches, and their applications. Highlights include the opportunity to read ancient texts in their original language, and focus on areas of interest including semiotics, translation, and adaptation.


About Signum Thesis Theaters
Each of our master’s students writes a thesis at the end of their degree program, exploring a topic of their choice. The Thesis Theater is their opportunity to present their research to a general audience, and answer questions. All are welcome to attend!


Registration is open for the Summer 2024 semester! Classes begin Monday, April 29th. To view our upcoming courses: https://signumuniversity.org/degree-p....


Learn about Signum University’s mission, leadership and more: https://signumuniversity.org/about/.


Want to enjoy Signum’s educational offerings? Start here! https://signumuniversity.org/non-degr....
Support Signum Symposia

This recording from April 5, 2024.


Abstract
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth has long been praised for its sense of depth, but Tolkien’s creation has often been criticized, especially by Marxist critics, for its lack in depicting economic realities and for providing a reactionary fantasy to soothe bourgeois anxieties about a changing world. However, the traditional bourgeois-proletarian dichotomy, in particular when mapped onto the Hobbits and the Orcs of Middle-earth, fails to fully engage with Tolkien’s fantasy world. Building off the concept of sub-creation established by Tolkien in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” and Gergely Nagy’s examination of magic as inherent power in Middle-earth, this paper argues that magic rather than capital functions as a means of production in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Just as our relationships to capital in the real world shape our ideologies, so the peoples of Middle-earth are shaped by their relationship to magic, from the highest Elves to the most ordinary of Hobbits. This focus on magic shows how Tolkien’s works present a compelling picture of a world where relationships to power are complicated and change is inevitable.


About the Presenter
Duane Watson is an instructor at Llano High School in Llano, Texas, teaching English Composition, Economics, Government, and Audio/Visual Art and Technology. He received a B.S. in History from Howard Payne University (Brownwood, TX), an M.A. in English from National University (La Jolla, California), and an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from Concordia University – Nebraska. He resides in the Texas Hill Country with his wife, Jen, and their four cats.


About Signum Thesis Theaters
Each of our master’s students writes a thesis at the end of their degree program, exploring a topic of their choice. The Thesis Theater is their opportunity to present their research to a general audience, and answer questions. All are welcome to attend!


Registration is open for the Summer 2024 semester! Classes begin Monday, April 29th. To view our upcoming courses: https://signumuniversity.org/degree-p....


Learn about Signum University’s mission, leadership and more: https://signumuniversity.org/about/.


Want to enjoy Signum’s educational offerings? Start here! https://signumuniversity.org/non-degr....
Support Signum Symposia

This recording from March 22, 2024.


Abstract
Dark Academia (DA), as a genre, is an offshoot of academic fiction that has become prominent over the last decade. After defining DA and exploring its roots, I dive into Intertextuality to ask why modern authors have chosen DA as their genre of choice as they reimagine elements of classic works. The works I chose to analyze are The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (2005), which exists in connection with Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897); Conversion by Katherine Howe (2014), which exists in connection with The Crucible by Arthur Miller (1953); Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth (2020), which exists in connection with The Story of Mary MacLane, alternatively titled I Await the Devil’s Coming by Mary MacLane (1902); and The Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven (2022), which exists in connection with Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). Authors give myths breaths of new life century after century, and works that have asked pointed questions of society and their readers often stay around long enough for new, younger readers to ask those same questions of their own changing societal contexts by building on the existing classical works. DA gives a structured power setting that can be treated as a sandbox of sorts for enquiring minds on how new people and places have altered responses to questions that have been asked again and again in literature.


About the Presenter
Laurel M. Stevens completed her undergraduate in English at Westminster College where she first delved into fantasy studies with Tolkien. Her masters coursework at Signum focused on Imaginative Literature and has allowed her to explore fantasy at greater depths and introduced her to areas of studies such as adaptation and Dark Academia. She reads and reviews heavily in modern fantasy and science fiction, yet remains interested in a wide range of literature.


About Signum Thesis Theaters
Each of our master’s students writes a thesis at the end of their degree program, exploring a topic of their choice. The Thesis Theater is their opportunity to present their research to a general audience, and answer questions. All are welcome to attend!


Registration is open for the Summer 2024 semester! Classes begin Monday, April 29th. To view our upcoming courses: https://signumuniversity.org/degree-p....


Learn about Signum University’s mission, leadership and more: https://signumuniversity.org/about/.


Want to enjoy Signum’s educational offerings? Start here! https://signumuniversity.org/non-degr....
Support Signum Symposia

This recording is from Signum University Annual Fundraising Webathon, December 9, 2023. If you want to watch the recordings of the full event, check the 2023 Fundraising campaign playlist here. • Signum University Annual Fundraising ...


This year's campaign announcement • Signum University's Fall Fundraising ...
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