This time around in the Hall of Fire we’ll delve through one of the concepts that greatly impacted the life and mind of Professor Tolkien.
The Impact of Industrialization on Tolkien and Middle-earth
Tolkien started his life down in the south of Africa in the late 1800’s. As a youth and throughout his life, he witnessed the effect of industrialization and mechanization on both the environments he loved and humanity. A survivor and participant of World Wars, it was Tolkien’s view that in Middle-earth, goblins (orcs) can be credited as those who, “…invented some of the machines that since troubled the world…” (from The Hobbit), and clearly sees this as a bad thing. But did Tolkien think that all industrialization was negative? Evidence points to the opposite as well.
Come sit with us and explore how the industrial era changed the world, according to Tolkien. First timers welcome!
Place: #thehalloffire on theonering.net server; come to theonering.net’s chat room Barliman’s and then type /join #thehalloffire .
Saturday Chat: 7:00 pm ET (19:00) [also midnight Saturday (24:00) GMT and 10:00 am Sunday (10:00) AET]
Sunday Chat: 8:00 pm (20:00) AET [also 10:00 am (10:00) GMT and 5:00 am (05:00) ET]
Sunday Chat: 6:00 pm (18:00) GMT [also 1:00 pm (13:00) ET and 4:00 am (04:00) Monday morning AET]
ET = Eastern Time, the time on the USA’s east coast
GMT = Greenwich Mean Time, the time in Western Europe
AET = Australian Eastern Time, the time on Australia’s east coast
Questions? Topics? Send ‘em here.
