» Preliminary programme

For further information, visit the » Seminar website.

» More information on the project

Picture: Gravisi family tree  (public domain)

The conference fee €50 and includes a conference pack, reception, tea and coffee and a discount on the conference proceedings to be published by Four Courts Press. The conference programme and registration form can be obtained with Dr. H. Conrad-O’Briain (conrado@tcd.ie).

Speakers so far confirmed:

• Prof. Michael D. C. Drout (Wheaton College):  ‘The Tower and the Ruin: The Past in Tolkien’
• Prof. Verlyn Flieger (University of Maryland): ‘Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Sentient Landscape in Tolkien’s Fiction’
• Prof. Thomas Honegger (University of Jena): ‘”Raw Forest” and the “Cooked City” Lévi-Strauss in Middle-earth’
• Prof. Alison Milbank (University of Nottingham): ›In a Dark Wood: Tolkien and Dante’’
• Meg Black: ‘The Party Tree and its Roots in the Spanish Civil War’
• Dr. Jane Carroll (Trinity College Dublin): ‘On the Edge of Ruin: Unexpected Pleasures in Unexpected Places in The Lord of the Rings’’
• Dr. Dimitra Fimi (Cardiff Metropolitan University):  ‘Wildman of the Woods: Inscribing Tragedy on the Landscape of Middle –earth in The Children of Hurin’
• Jennifer Harwood-Smith (Trinity College Dublin):  ‘Fractured Cities: the Twinning of Tolkien’s Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul with Fritz Lang’s Metropolis«
• Gerard Hynes, (Trinity College Dublin): ‘The Cedar has Fallen: Empire, Deforestation, and the Fall of Numenor’
• Ian Kinane (Trinity College Dublin): ‘Less Noise, More Green: Cultural Materialism and the Reverse Discourse of the Forest in Tolkien’s The Hobbit’
• Karl Kinsella (Keble College Oxford): ‘A Preference for Round Windows: Architectural Description in Lord of the Rings’
• Rebecca Merkelbach (Clare College Cambridge): ‘Deeper and Deeper into the Wood: Forests as Places of Transformation in The Lord of the Rings’
• Dominika Nycz: ‘The Forest and the City: The Dichotomy of Tolkien’s Istari’
• Dr. Erin Sebo (Trinity College Dublin): ‘Liminal Cities? The Location of Riddle Contests in The Hobbit‹

» Further informationen

Picture: Trinity College Dublin by Steve Cadman

You work as an account for the Hobbit film. Is that like any other accountant’s job?

Actually no. I’ve never trained to be an accountant. If you had ever asked me to be an accountant I would have said: definitely not! But working as an accountant for a film, you need to know the industry. It’s a very specialised sort of accounting. Not very many people are trained accountants in the sector. You need to have common sense rather than hard-core mathematical skills, really.

Last time you were involved in a Tolkien adaptation, i.e. Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’, you also came in as a behind-the-scenes man initially.

I started out in production which is the main office that basically runs everything. I worked four years on all three films, doing lots of different little jobs along the way.

And one day someone walked up to you and said “You’re an elf!”?

Well, I was just in the office and the casting director came along and said “Would you consider being on screen? We’ve got this role …” And of course I’d do anything to get out of the office for a week, so I took the job. It took about two weeks to film the Council of Elrond scene [where Jonathan can be seen as Erestor] and from then on I did a couple of little scenes [e.g. a two-day stint as Dinendal, an elf of the Galadhrim] when they couldn’t find anyone else that fit the description.

Do you expect to get cast as an elf in the Hobbit again?

I’m hoping at one point to get cast as something but you never know. It’s quite hard because I’m incredibly busy as well so it’s tough to find the time to take out of your normal job. But I’m hoping for next year.

I heard that they were looking for smaller actors to play the woodelves of Mirkwood this time.

Yeah, they are … I heard. There are different races of elves in the books and they are different heights. So I have to wait for the Rivendell elves to come back.

Do you actually get to see the people on set or are you working in an office off-site?

I get to work two-and-a-half days on and two-and-a-half days off set. So I get around and see a lot of people. I also really enjoy being with the core crew off set, many of which I already know from ‘The Lord of the Rings’. There is a lot of history, having known these people for over ten years now.

How did you get into the film industry in the first place?

I never planned to work in the industry at all. I was literally at a party somewhere one day and someone said that they were looking for someone with local knowledge of Nelson, where they shot parts of ‘The Lord of the Rings’. I thought to myself, yeah sure, I can do that for a couple of weeks – four years later I was still there.

Have you read The Lord of the Rings, and if so when?

Of course. I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings when I was a teenager, well before I started working on the films. I haven’t read them since, though and I’d love to read them again soon, especially The Hobbit as I’ve forgotten quite a bit of the details which now came back to me seeing filming. I’ve got this beautifully illustrated edition as well. I was chuffed to meet Alan Lee and John Howe as they’re so incredibly talented.

Do you have any plans for after ‘The Hobbit’ yet?

Not really. Employment at the production company is project-based but you generally get to move along with the whole team to a new film. To be honest, I’m currently trying to be more of a musician so that is my main focus right now. But it’s hard to be not totally caught up in these films cause it’s such amazing work, really. I try and take less film and more music work.

» Samples of Jonathan Harding’s music

Picture by Miriam Watschong

The largest exhibition of Queen Margarethe II’s artwork so far, in which visitors can trace her artistic development over the past 35 years, includes over 130 paintings in acryl, water-colour and collages and new works that have not been shown to be public before.

In 1969, the Queen read J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and was inspired to paint a series of landscapes for lost legends. Since then, nature is one of the central motifs in her artwork.

» Further information

Pictures: Arken