January 2027 Modules

This four-week lecture course examines geography as a generative force in Tolkien's legendarium, treating landscape not as backdrop but as the engine of story, meaning, and feeling. Each week pairs a one-hour lecture with a discussion session, moving outward from the Shire to the furthest edges of the map while the critical lens deepens in parallel: philology and cartography in Week 1, ecocriticism in Week 2, the sublime and postcolonial critique in Week 3, and sacred geography and loss in Week 4. Tolkien's own account of his working method, given in a 1954 letter to Naomi Mitchison, provides the course's title and its guiding premise: he built the story to fit the map rather than the reverse.

Participants will trace how that premise plays out across the legendarium, from the compressed histories encoded in place names such as Rivendell and Barad-dûr to the ideological work performed by the pastoral Shire, the contested racial coding of Mordor, and the eventual withdrawal of Valinor beyond any mortal map.

For anyone who has ever lingered over the endpapers of a Tolkien novel tracing a river or a mountain range, this course offers a chance to read those maps properly, as texts in their own right. Along the way, familiar places take on new depth: the Shire's cosy fields turn out to carry buried questions of class and belonging, Mirkwood and Moria become studies in dread and the sublime, and the fading of Lothlórien and Valinor emerges as one of the legendarium's quietest, most powerful meditations on loss.

No background in literary theory is required, only curiosity and a willingness to look again at a world many of us feel we already know well. Across four weeks, that familiar map will start to look a good deal stranger, and a good deal richer, than it first appeared.

The module will follow an 8-session structure and is shown by weeks:

Week	Topic
Week 1	Cartography, Naming, and the Birth of Middle-earth
Week 2	The Shire and the Ecology of Home
Week 3	Wilderness, Threshold, and the Sublime
Week 4	Sacred Geography, Loss, and the Limits of the Map

Typological motifs are a prominent feature of Tolkien's legendarium, including the motif of marriage and romance. Marital relationships appear among the Ainur (both Valar and Maiar) and the Children of Ilúvatar (both Elves and Men): some happy, some tragic, and some in-between. Tolkien's stories of marriage and romance represent a kind of "wisdom tradition" with relevant applicability to modern society and modern relationships. Most notably, men are always the ones who "marry up" in Tolkien's world, demonstrating a profound respect for women and femininity in society.

Course Outline:

Week One
• Introduction to Marriage & Romance in Tolkien
• Typological motifs –– Manwë, Varda, & Melkor (The Silmarillion)
• Ainur Marriage and Non-Marriage (The Silmarillion)
Week Two
• Introduction to Marriage & Romance in Tolkien
• Elf=Maia Marriage –– Thingol & Melian (The Silmarillion)
• Man=Elf Marriage –– Beren & Lúthien (The Silmarillion)
• Tragic Marriage –– Túrin & Finduilas Nienor (The Silmarillion)
Week Three
• Heroic Marriage –– Tuor & Idril (The Silmarillion)
• Elf=Maia Marriage –– Thingol & Melian (The Silmarillion)
• Half-Elven Marriage –– Eärendil & Elwing (The Silmarillion)
• Human Marriage –– Aldarion & Erendis (Unfinished Tales)
Week Four
• Man=Elf Marriage –– Aragorn & Arwen (The Lord of the Rings)
• Elf=Maia Marriage –– Thingol & Melian (The Silmarillion)
• Man=Woman Marriage –– Faramir & Éowyn (The Lord of the Rings)
• Human Marriage –– Aldarion & Erendis (Unfinished Tales)
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Note: All sessions will be live recorded and shared with all enrolled students afterward for review and to allow those who cannot attend live to still participate in the class.

In this module we'll work together to create individual goals, projects, and action plans for the year to come and establish a journaling system to keep you accountable. We'll also cover techniques that I've found helpful and figure out how they best apply to you individually.

Each session will begin with a 15–20-minute mini-lecture on the session’s topic followed by examples from my own life. We will then take however long is needed for Q&A and discussion on the topic. The rest of the session will be a workshop format where we will share with one another the results from your own work on the previous session’s topic and “assignment”.

To get the most out of this class, expect to spend 1-2 hours outside of each class session and be prepared to share your personal goals and projects in class so that we can help each other refine and reach our goals. As this is a SPACE module, there are no requirements. But it is encouraged that you take 1-2 hours or so between sessions to work through your implementation of what was talked about in the previous session.

This module will be divided into three main parts:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Part 1: Introspection	Session 1: Establishing Your Foundation (alt. Finding Your Why): Pillars + Roles
	Session 2: Pursuing Excellence: Arete
	Session 3: Reviews + Plans: Annual, Quarterly, and Monthly
Part 2: Planning	Session 4: Habits + Goals
	Session 5: Projects + Tasks
	Session 6: Reviews + Plans: Annual, Quarterly, and Monthly
Part 3: Action	Session 7: Taking Action: Weekly and Daily
	Session 8: Following Through: Tools, Tips, and Techniques