A quick update: Last year, we told you about Corey Olsen, an English Professor at Washington College, who started publishing online lectures on the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien. We initially featured his lecture series on The Hobbit. Now “The Tolkien Professor,” as Olsen is otherwise known, presents a series of online courses on The Lord of the Rings trilogy:
- Lord of the Rings I: The Road Goes Ever On – iTunesU
- Lord of the Rings II: The Two Towers – iTunesU – Web
- Lord of the Rings III: Return of the King – iTunes U – Web
As a bonus, you can access Olsen’s Undergraduate Survey Course on Tolkien (available on the web). The 14-week course was presented and recorded at Washington College in the Spring of 2010.
All of Olsen’s courses are catalogued in the Literature section of our collection of 825 Free Online Courses.
Related Content:
Listen to J.R.R. Tolkien Read a Lengthy Excerpt from The Hobbit (1952)
Listen to J.R.R. Tolkien Read Poems from The Fellowship of the Ring, in Elvish and English (1952)
Fantastic BBC Footage of J.R.R. Tolkien in 1968
Free Audio: Download the Complete Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
I don’t want itunes but I want these lectures!
Would love the lectures, but say no to iTunes.
In addition to being on itunes, these (and other) lectures are all available via the Mythgard Academy, the non-profit organization Dr. Olsen started and now runs full time.
You can see the full list of free courses here: http://www.mythgard.org/academy/past-classes/
More courses are being added. Dr. Olsen is starting a new session on Tolkien’s “The Book of Lost Tales” in a couple weeks, and after will be a course on Frank Herbert’s “Dune.”
There are also a number of for-pay courses at the Mythgard Institute (mythgard.org), which can be audited or taken for credit toward an MA degree.
Enjoy!
More info on MA program
Interested in MA program