Call for Abstracts

                           The Hobbit and Philosophy

                  Edited by Eric Bronson and Gregory Bassham

                The Blackwell Philosophy and PopCulture Series

                       Please circulate and post widely.

                         Apologies for Cross-posting.

To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact the
Series Editor, William Irwin at wtir...@kings.edu .

Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but
accessible and fun, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Contributors
of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.

Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following
:

Life as an adventure; comfort vs. risk; moral growth; ennoblement of the
humble; unlikely heroes; hoarding and possessiveness; fantasy and escapism;
providence and chance; good and evil; Gollum and selfhood; Bilbo’s virtues
(courage, humility, loyalty, mercy, generosity, etc.); friendship and
community; enchantment vs. technology; the ‘bourgeois’ hobbit; riddles and
philosophy; hobbits’ homespun wisdom; power and authority; Tolkien’s
environmentalism; Tolkien’s view of war; gender/class/race in The Hobbit;
religious themes in The Hobbit; self-identity of shape-shifters (Beorn); Daoist
themes in The Hobbit; Gandalf and angels; the ethical and imaginative power of
fairy tales.

Submission guidelines:

1. Submission deadline for abstracts (100-500 words) and cv’s: April 15, 2008

2. Submission deadline for first drafts of accepted papers: August 15, 2008

3. Submission deadline for final papers October 15, 2008

Kindly submit by e-mail (with or without Word attachment) to:

Gregory Bassham at ghbas...@kings.edu

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