Episode 7 - Silvergifting

For our first episode of 2024, we take a look through the Quick Post as Alicia is joined by 'Producer' Tim to recount the highlights of their December trip to New Zealand in December to a decidedly jealous Grace and Leah. Then we excitedly gush together about the upcoming online seminar we're hosting on Feb 17th-18th, 'Something Mighty Queer', featuring many of our pals and past podcast guests. We hope to see you there, Lodgers and Birches! To finish off, we summarize some recent developments in Tolkien scholarship, including a run of excellent and much-needed work by Tom Emanuel, some wonderful pieces by our friends in a recent issue of Mallorn, and also one obnoxious article that will not go unchallenged.

Register for the Mythopoeic Society's Online Midwinter Seminar 'Something Mighty Queer' here: https://mythsoc.org/oms/oms-2024.htm

Friend of the pod Cait Rottler joins Leah, Grace, and Alicia to talk all about horses and the 'Horse Girl' character trope. We start out with a look at the overlap between Horse Girls and Queer identity, continue with a quick review of the major tropes of Horse Girl stories (with a detour into the related genre of 'Dragonrider' stories), and then celebrate our favorite 'Horse Girls' from Middle-earth, including Movie!Aragorn/Viggo Mortensen,  Arwen, Tom Bombadil, Beorn, Glorfindel, and more. 

Visit our website (www.queerlodgings.com) for full notes and resources for this and all of our episodes.

For a special Halloween episode, we invited our favorite Sauron experts Cameron and Mercury to talk to us about some of Arda's biggest villains. Specifically, the ship pairing known as 'Angbang', which pairs the Dark Lord Sauron against the fallen Valar Morgoth, also known as Melkor. From the history of this ship and how its depictions changed over time, to the best-known Angbang fan fic and fan artists, to all the problematic, messy power dynamics involved... we dive deep into some dark, kinky transformative works to explore why 'Angbangers' are so enthralled with this pairing.

Content warning: This episode includes discussion of sex, sexual relationships, kink, BDSM, intimate partner violence at various levels of consent, rape, sexual assault/abuse, abusive relationships, and abusive power dynamics.

We have a special treat for you this month - Leah, Alicia, and Grace welcome not one... not two... but three guests! They are the editors of the forthcoming edited anthology '"There Are Many Paths to Tread": Queer Approaches to Tolkien's Middle-earth' from McFarland (due to release in 2025), and each is a well-known Tolkien scholar in their own right - Robin Reid, Chris Vaccaro, and Steve Yandell. Join us as we discuss the landscape of Queer and Intersectional Tolkien studies, why they're important, and what these important and fresh outlooks can contribute to Tolkien scholarship.

Queer Lodgings is one year old! Help Grace, Leah, and Alicia mark the occasion with a bit of reflection of the first year of the podcast as Tim asks a few questions about their experience thus far. We also share some teasers of what listeners can expect in our second year and beyond, and share some laughs over failed attempts of auto-transcription at Tolkienian names. Plus, learn how listeners can convince the co-hosts to do readings from Demetrious Polychron's terrible knock-off Lord of the Rings sequel!

Thanks for joining us on this journey over the past year, and we hope you'll continue on this path with us for many more!

Rory and Stuart from The Alliance of Arda join us to discuss Aromantic/Asexual (Aro/Ace) readings of Tolkien. Bagginses! Aldarion! Istari! Sauron!? Listen in as we fill in some of the gaps (and some deep, problematic holes) with Queer Readings that put the 'A' in LGBTQIA+!

Content Warning: Transphobia, Acephobia

Catching up on some recent and upcoming events in the world of Tolkien, we begin by lauding some of our favorite presentations from the recent Tolkien Society Seminar and GIFcon. We compare a couple of very different upcoming Religion-themed Tolkien-focused events, and then highlight the participation of the Queer Lodgings team in several panels and presentations at the Mythopoeic Society's Online Midsummer Seminar on Aug 5th-6th. Queer Lodgings also took over the #TolkienTrewsday hashtag recently, and we discuss what a great experience it was for the Tolkien Twitter community! Finally, we fan swoon over the Lord of the Rings-themed 'Magic: The Gathering' set, and the wonderful representation found in the art on some some of the cards. Lots of teasers here for future content on our podcast from great Tolkien scholars doing ground-breaking work!

Content warning: Spanking, BDSM, Forced Marriage

In the second part of our 'Tolkien Would Hate This Podcast' series, Leah, Grace, and Alicia examine the world in Tolkien's time as it relates to sexuality and queerness, and JRRT's own opinions, experiences, and relationships with them. Listen to Grace's theory that polyamory could have prevented the events of The Silmarillion, and the evidence that Tolkien stayed up late in the bath reading a book of gay poetry that included references to glory holes. #ReleaseTheTolkienSmut

CW: sexual assault, rape, homophobia, suicide, HIV/AIDS

We're back! In this new series of episodes, Alica, Grace, and Leah tackle the criticism that "Tolkien would hate this podcast" for a whole host of reasons: We (and our listeners) are too Queer, too Progressive, not Catholic enough, too 'woke', or too willing to accept multiple and even contradictory readings. In this first episode of a series, we talk about Tolkien’s attitudes about his fans, reader interpretation/response to his works, and adaptation.

To celebrate our first 'Tolkien Reading Day' as a podcast, we each chose a favourite poem from Tolkien to read. Grace selected 'The Mewlips' (1962), Alicia chose 'Progress in Bimble Town' (1931), and Leah's pick was 'Errantry' (1933).