Anna Smol
@annasmol.bsky.social
980 followers 470 following 58 posts
Professor Emerita Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, with interests in Tolkien Studies, medievalism, Old English, translation studies, fandom.
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annasmol.bsky.social
I agree! My professors liked to joke that maybe you shouldn’t put a library in a place called Ashburnham! (By the way, the poem is in Old English, not Middle English).
annasmol.bsky.social
Free online seminar: Arda's Entangled Bodies and Environments, featuring analyses across Tolkien's works. October 18, sponsored by the Tolkien Society and the Uni. of Glasgow's Centre for Fantasy & the Fantastic. Details in the link or go to the Tolkien Society Events page. wp.me/p2vwHX-2gZ
annasmol.bsky.social
An exciting new event: the inaugural European Conference on the Fantastic at University of Glasgow in June 2026. Theme:Fantasy’s Present Pasts. CfP in the link. fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20...
Fantasy’s Present Pasts – Call for Papers and Sessions – Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic
fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk
Reposted by Anna Smol
erictopol.bsky.social
Children and teens who had a Covid reinfection had a doubling of #LongCovid risk (PASC) and a significant increase in many other adverse outcomes (Figure) www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Reposted by Anna Smol
podcast.athrabeth.com
This month we discuss Oxonmoot and our session “Tolkien’s Try-hard Troublemakers” with Dr. Kristine Larsen and @aranelparmadil.bsky.social. Thank you Kris and Sara for joining us!

athrabeth.simplecast.com/episodes/epi...

For the slides, check out the episode on YouTube: youtu.be/i--2o37rayM
Selfie style group photo of Stef, Jude, Sara Brown and Kristine Larsen at Oxonmoot 2025 Group photo of Stef, Jude, Sara Brown and Kristine Larsen in front of our slides at Oxonmoot 2025 Photo of the room with our wonderful attendees at Oxonmoot.
annasmol.bsky.social
Congratulations, Tom! I’m looking forward to reading it in the future.
annasmol.bsky.social
Thanks for the mention, Paul! (And it serves as another reminder that I need to make some updates, including your list of alliterative poems in the Collected Poems volume ).
annasmol.bsky.social
Rereading Tolkien's The Notion Club Papers: Sauron and the Barber. Some thoughts on how evil makes inroads with decent people. annasmol.net/2025/09/26/r...
annasmol.bsky.social
Canadians: urge the government to maintain its commitments to sciences and humanities research funding.
Reposted by Anna Smol
prancingponypod.bsky.social
"The Muster at Marquette" is a documentary premiering today featuring friend of the show Dr. Bill Fliss and his work on the Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection at Marquette University. Follow the link to give it a watch! youtu.be/QC-JkWDq7dk?...
The Muster at Marquette | Short Documentary | 2025
YouTube video by Village Pictures
youtu.be
Reposted by Anna Smol
queerlodgings.bsky.social
New episode alert! zencastr.com/z/_gLEDrCs We have a special treat with you this episode... a discussion about "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim" with the film's credited "Tolkien Expert" (and a Lodger herself), Janet Brennan Croft!
Reposted by Anna Smol
joelmerriner.bsky.social
My book Illustrating The Lord of the Rings in the Soviet Bloc is released into the wild today! Here's a quick peek at a few more pages, artwork here by Győző Vida, Yassen Panov, Alexander Korotich and Sergei Iukhimov #Tolkien www.bloomsbury.com/uk/illustrat...
Reposted by Anna Smol
toebi.bsky.social
📨You are warmly invited to our next annual conference at University College Dublin @ucddublin.bsky.social
📅 Saturday, 25 October 2025
📜The theme is "Education and Early Medieval England" and our programme is available to view online.
📲Registration is now open: www.eventbrite.ie/e/1631647263...
Reposted by Anna Smol
genwil.bsky.social
Brilliant.
erininthemorning.com
The Nation pulls NO punches, from @espiers.bsky.social

"There's no requirement to take part in this whitewashing campaign. Refusing to join in doesn’t make anyone a bad person. It’s a choice to write an obituary that begins “Joseph Goebbels was a gifted marketer and loving father to six children.”
Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning
The white Christian nationalist provocateur wasn’t a promoter of civil discourse. He preached hate, bigotry, and division
www.thenation.com
annasmol.bsky.social
A recording of my talk, "Grendel's Mother Talks Back: Contemporary Women's Mythopoeic Revisions," is now available. This presentation was part of the Online Midsummer Seminar sponsored by the Mythopoeic Society last month. @mythsoc.bsky.social. annasmol.net/2025/09/05/g...
Grendel’s Mother Talks Back
“Grendel’s Mother Talks Back: Contemporary Women’s Mythopoeic Revisions” is a talk I gave for the Midsummer Online Seminar of the Mythopoeic Society in August. A link to the…
annasmol.net
Reposted by Anna Smol
memrn.bsky.social
We are delighted to announce our September meeting’s guest speaker, @willsherwood.bsky.social from @uofglasgow.bsky.social. Also the Education Secretary for @tolkiensociety.org, we can’t wait to hear him present!

Join us at 6pm BST on Monday 29th September via Teams. DM or email us to attend.
MEMRN meeting on September 29th 2025, 6pm BST. Will Sherwood from University of Glasgow is presenting ‘Tolkien's Romantic Medievalism’. Join us on Microsoft Teams. Email us or DM for the meeting link.
Reposted by Anna Smol
mythsoc.bsky.social
A belated thank you to everyone who helped make this year's OMS truly exceptional! Celebrating the 10th anniversary of Mythopoeic Press's Perilous and Fair was such an honor. We're pleased to announce that the presentations are now live at dc.swosu.edu/oms/oms4/ for everyone to enjoy!
Online Midsummer Seminar (OMS) #4 | Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Home > MYTHSOC > MS_EVENTS > OMS > OMS4
dc.swosu.edu
Reposted by Anna Smol
tolkienthoughts.bsky.social
Douglas Anderson's new article in the Journal of Tolkien Research concisely summarizes what has long been suspected about Josef Madlener’s “Der Berggeist”: that it is in fact not the “Origin of Gandalf,” despite Tolkien's faulty memory identifying it as such scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcont...
Reposted by Anna Smol
banzailibrarian.bsky.social
Tolkien language nerds, scans of the first five issues of Parma Eldalamberon, long only available as photocopies, are now available open access: dc.swosu.edu/parma/
Parma Eldalamberon | Mythopoeic Society | Southwestern Oklahoma State University
dc.swosu.edu
Reposted by Anna Smol
monicamedhist.bsky.social
My main professional organization, @medievalacademy.bsky.social, has just pub'd a statement about the use of AI in its journal. Basically, DON'T! "AI tools cannot take ethical or legal responsibility for their output or enter into legal agreements." www.medievalacademy.org/page/AIPolicy #MedievalSky
AI Policy - The Medieval Academy of America
10/24/2025 » 10/25/2025Always Here: Non-Binary Gender, Trans Identities, and Queerness in the Global Middle Ages (c. 250–16
www.medievalacademy.org
Reposted by Anna Smol
msvuenglish.bsky.social
Did you miss out on Dr. Collier-Jarvis' talk on Little Girl Zombies at Theorizing Zombiism? Not to worry, you can check it out on Youtube: youtu.be/GpGHJ0x_my0?...
Krista Collier Jarvis
YouTube video by Zombie Studies Network
youtu.be