Dimitra Fimi is Professor of Fantasy and Children's Literature at the University of Glasgow. Both her monographs (Tolkien, Race and Cultural History, 2008; Celtic Myth in Contemporary Children's Fantasy, 2017) won Mythopoeic Scholarship Awards. She has co-edited the first critical "extended" edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's essay "A Secret Vice" from Tolkien's manuscripts at the Bodleian (A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages, 2016). She was commissioned to produce the first ever Audible Exclusive lecture series on Tolkien (2022); she delivered the Inaugural Annual Tolkien Lecture at the University of Birmingham (2022); and she won the Outstanding Contribution Award by the Tolkien Society in 2021. She co-edits the Perspectives on Fantasy book series (Bloomsbury).
Website: https://dimitrafimi.org/
Substack: https://dimitrafimi.substack.com/
Selected Tolkien-related Publications:
(with Andoni Cossio) '"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", J. R. R. Tolkien's 1953 W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture: An Updated Chronology and Related Findings', English Studies, 2024. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0013838X.2024.2344915 (Open Access)
Review of Amazon Prime's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, "The road goes ever on Ringing the changes in Tolkien's Middle-earth", The Times Literary Supplement, 23 September 2022. Available at: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-arts-review-dimitra-fimi/
(with Mariana Rios Maldonado) 'Lord of the Rings: debunking the backlash against non-white actors in Amazon's new adaption', The Conversation, 25 February 2022. Available at: https://theconversation.com/lord-of-the-rings-debunking-the-backlash-against-non-white-actors-in-amazons-new-adaption-177791
(with Thomas Honegger) Sub-creating Arda: World-building in J.R.R. Tolkien's Works, its Precursors, and Legacies. Walking Tree Publishers, 2019.
Review of Tolkien (2019) biopic by Dome Karukoski, "Linguistics, mythology and tea: Love, study, friendship and war: J. R. R. Tolkien's early life", The Times Literary Supplement, 17 May 2019, p. 22. Available at: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/linguistics-mythology-and-tea/
'Language as Communication vs. Language as Art: J.R.R. Tolkien and Early 20th-Century Radical Linguistic Experimentation', Journal of Tolkien Research, 5(1), 2018, pp. 1-28. Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol5/iss1/2/ (Open Access)
'Was Tolkien really racist?', The Conversation, 6 December 2018. Available at: https://theconversation.com/was-tolkien-really-racist-108227
'Tolkien's Arda', in Wolf, M. (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds. New York: Routledge, 2017, pp. 377-84.
(with Andrew Higgins) 'Invented Languages', in Wolf, M. (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds. New York: Routledge, 2017, pp. 21-9.
'"Tears are the very wine of blessedness": Joyful Sorrow in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings', in Helen, Daniel (ed.), Death and Immortality in Middle-earth: Proceedings of the Tolkien Society Seminar 2016. Edinburgh: Luna Press Publishing, 2017, pp. 183-195.
'J.R.R. Tolkien's Christmas letters to his children bring echoes of Middle-earth to the North Pole', The Conversation, 21 December 2017. Available at: https://theconversation.com/j-r-r-tolkiens-christmas-letters-to-his-children-bring-echoes-of-middle-earth-to-the-north-pole-89464.
Review of The Story of Kullervo, by J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. by Verlyn Flieger. Journal of Tolkien Research, 3 (1), 2016, available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=journaloftolkienresearch
Tolkien, J.R.R. A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages, edited by Dimitra Fimi and Andrew Higgins. London: HarperCollins, 2016. [Paperback, 2020]
'The Past as an Imaginary World: The Case of Medievalism [Chatterton, Tolkien, Eco]', in Wolf, M. (ed.), Revisiting Imaginary Worlds: A Subcreation Studies Anthology. New York: Routledge, 2016, pp. 46-66.
'Teaching Tolkien and Race: An Inconvenient Combination?', in Donovan, L.A. (ed.), Approaches to Teaching J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Other Works. New York: MLA, 2015, pp. 144-9.
'Later Fantasy Fiction', in Lee, S. (ed.), A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien. Oxford: Blackwell, 2014, pp. 335-49. [Revised for 2022 revised and expanded edition.]
'"Wildman of the Woods": Inscribing Tragedy on the Landscape of Middle-earth in The Children of Húrin', in Conrad-O'Brien, H. and Hynes, G. (eds.), Tolkien: The Forest and the City. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013, pp. 43-56.
'Tolkien and the Fantasy Tradition', in Whitehead, C. (ed.), Critical Insights: The Fantastic. CA: Salem Press, 2012, pp. 40-60
'Filming folklore: adapting fantasy for the big screen through Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings', in Bogstad, J.M. and Kaveny, P.E. (eds.), Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Jeferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2011, pp. 84-103.
Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. [Paperback, 2010]
'Tolkien and old Norse antiquity: real and romantic links in material culture', in Clark, D. and Phelpstead, C. (eds.), Old Norse Made New: Essays on the Post-Medieval Reception of Old Norse Literature and Culture. Viking Society for Northern Research: London, 2007, pp. 83-90.
'Tolkien's "'Celtic' type of legends": Merging Traditions', Tolkien Studies, 4, 2007, pp. 51-71.
'"Mad Elves" and "Elusive Beauty": Some Celtic Strands of Tolkien's Mythology', Folklore, 117 (2), 2006, pp. 156-170. [Translated into Spannish: 'De Elfos "locos" y "belezza elusiva": algunos filamentos celtas en la mitología de Tolkien', J.R.R. Tolkien y la Tierra Media, Spain: Candamo, 2021.]
'"Come Sing ye Light Fairy Things Tripping so Gay": Victorian Fairies and the Early Work of J.R.R. Tolkien', Working with English: Medieval and Modern Language, Literature and Drama, 2, 2005, pp. 10-26. Available at: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/documents/working-with-english/volume-2/fimi-come-sing-ye-light-fairy-things-tripping-so-gay-victorian-fairies-and-the-early-work-of-j.-r.-r.-tolkien.pdf (Open Access)
