Renowned Fantasy Author Susan Cooper speaks at the Fifth Annual J.R.R. Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature

The following article is by Dr Gabriel Schenk, co-founder of the Annual J.R.R. Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature.

On Thursday 27th April we were delighted to welcome Susan Cooper, author of many beloved fantasy novels including the critically-acclaimed The Dark is Rising series, to Pembroke College to deliver this year’s J.R.R. Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature.

During her time at Oxford Susan attended lectures by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and covered Roger Bannister’s record-breaking four-minute mile in The Cherwell (a student run newspaper within the University). Susan became the Cherwell’s first female editor and then worked for The Sunday Times under Ian Fleming, before emigrating to the United States. The Dark is Rising (published between 1965 and 1977) won a Newbery Medal, a Newbery Honour Award, as well as two Carnegie Honour Awards.

Susan spoke about her experiences at Oxford; the work of fellow members of the ‘Oxford school’ of fantasy literature (Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, Philip Pullman); the role of the Welsh concept of ‘hiraeth’ in the writing process; and the importance of fantasy literature in an age dominated by Fake News and the idolisation of celebrities.

After the talk William Brockbank (MPhil Medieval English, 2015) and Augustus Porter (DPhil Astrophysics, 2016) facilitated a Q&A session, selecting questions from an audience made up of students, alumni, academics, and attendees who had travelled from across the country.

The talk and Q&A can be watched on Youtube. Photographs and a podcast of the talk are also available on the Tolkien Lecture website.

The organisers of the lecture series are grateful for the Pembroke Annual Fund whose support makes the series possible.

About the J.R.R. Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature

From 1925-1945 J.R.R. Tolkien served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College. During this time, he wrote The Hobbit and the majority of The Lord of the Rings series.

Since 2013 Pembroke MCR students have organised an annual lecture in honour of J.R.R. Tolkien. The purpose of the lecture series is to promote speculative fiction — primarily, but not limited to, the fantasy genre — as literature worthy of study and scrutiny, and to advance our understanding of it by hearing from some of the most influential and talented people working in the field today.

For more information, and to sign up for a mailing list to be alerted about next year’s talk, please visit tolkienlecture.org.