Advertise on podcast: The Entmoot Podcast

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam discuss chapter 22 of the Quenta Silmarillion, which includes the release of Hurin from captivity, the fall of the kingdom of Doriath, and (most importantly), the death of Entmoot Podcast All-Star Mîm the Petty-dwarf. Primary sources: The Silmarillion | The Lord of the Rings | The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam look back at the year that was, look ahead to the year that's to come, and answer (excellent!) listener questions. Topics include the status of democracy in absolute monarchies like Gondor, connections between Tolkien and Lovecraft, the history of Galadriel, our favorite movies of 2025, Reddit comments about the podcast, and our predictions for 2026 elections in the US and abroad. Further reading/listening: Our episode with Rob Tally Our episode with Lee Konstantinou Our episode with Ali Mirzabayati Konstantinou - Mythic Capital: How Tolkien is Whispering in the Ears of America's Most Powerful Men Semley (Wired, 10/25) - Elon Musk Really Doesn't Get The Lord of the Rings Pagliarini (Dissent, Fall 25) - Lula's Unfinished Democracy Hartrich (Journal of Social History, Fall 24) - The Boundaries of Popular Control in Late Medieval English Towns Hill - The Century of Revolution: 1603-1714 Livingston - Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War Tooze - The Wages of Destruction Kenny's Letterboxd | Sam's Letterboxd Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to William Fliss about Tolkien's manuscripts and life as an archivist. Bill Fliss is the Manuscripts Archivist at Marquette University, which places him among the foremost authorities in the world on Tolkien's manuscripts for The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. He runs the Anduin Project at Marquette which is an invaluable tool for Tolkien researchers. Add your voice to the Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection and tell Bill we sent you! More Bill: “Things That Were, and Things That Are, and Things That Yet May Be”: The J.R.R. Tolkien Manuscript Collection at Marquette University (Documentary) The Muster At Marquette: Preserving 6,000 Fan Voices Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Jyrki Korpua about the Kalevala and the inspiration that Tolkien drew from it. This episode is a companion piece to our previous episode on chapter 21 of The Silmarillion, which you can find here. Jyrki Korpua is a researcher and lecturer of literature at the University of Oulu in Finland. He has published extensively on both the Kalevala and Tolkien, and we are here primarily discussing his 2024 book Tolkien and the Kalevala. More Jyrki: The Mythopoeic Code of Tolkien: A Christian Platonic Reading of the Legendarium “Master of Fate, yet by fate mastered” – Tolkien’s Túrin Turambar and Kalevala’s Kullervo Also mentioned: Lönnrot (Bosley translation) - The Kalevala Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam discuss chapters 20 and 21 of the Quenta Silmarillion, which include an account of the Fifth Battle and the tragic tale of Turin Turambar. Primary sources: The Silmarillion | The Lord of the Rings | The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien Books we've been reading: The Wages of Destruction Ride The Pink Horse The Long Goodbye Gilead The Sot-Weed Factor The Fort Bragg Cartel The Age of Empire Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam joined friend of the show Ethan Colburn for an episode of the Cineflek Podcast about Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. For a great documentary with more information on the making of the movie, check out "An Exhaustive History of Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings" from Folding Ideas on YouTube. For more on adaptation rights to Tolkien's work, listen to our episode from earlier this year "State of the Estate." For more of our opinions on movies, you can follow each of us on Letterboxd: Ethan (an actual Letterboxd influencer), Kenny, Sam. Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Cami Agan about the 2018 volume Beren and Luthien and about the textual history of the tale. This episode is a companion piece to our previous episode on chapter 19 of The Silmarillion, which you can find here. Cami Agan is the Distinguished Professor of Language and Literature at Oklahoma Christian University and a prominent scholar of Tolkien's First Age. More Cami: Lúthien Tinúviel and Bodily Desire in the Lay of Leithian Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth Hearkening to the Other: A Certeauvian Reading of the Ainulindale Also mentioned: Moore - A Song of Greater Power: Tolkien's Construction of Lúthien Tinúviel Whitaker - Corrupting Beauty: Rape Narrative in The Silmarillion Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam discuss chapter 19 of the Quenta Silmarillion, the incredible story of Beren and Luthien. Included is also a discussion of current events affecting Sam as a resident of Washington DC -- listeners with an allergy to that sort of thing can skip to 17:25 to get to "the good stuff." Primary sources: The Silmarillion | The Lord of the Rings | Beren and Luthien | The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Bret Devereaux about the Siege of Gondor and the Battle of Helm's Deep, including discussions of pre-modern logistics, cavalry charges, flails, command structures, battle speeches, and much more. Bret Devereaux is an ancient and military historian who currently teaches as a Teaching Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University. You can find him on Twitter and Bluesky, or at his blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry. More Bret: Blog series on Siege of Gondor Blog series on Helm's Deep Blog series on logistics Interview with Patrick Wyman on the Punic Wars Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Ali Mirzabayati about death and mourning in Tolkien's work. Ali published his thesis Death as a Gift: A Heroic Celebration of Life in The Lord of the Rings in December 2024. Ali Mirzabayati is a scholar of medieval literature and modern fantasy, including Tolkien's legendarium. More Ali: Mourning and Melancholia in The Lord of the Rings Sounds of Battle and Battle of Sounds: Belliphonic in Tolkien Beowulf and Théoden: Differing Teaching Methods of Hrothgar and Gandalf Further reading/listening: Amendt-Raduege - The Sweet and the Bitter: Death and Dying in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings Vaninskaya - Fantasies of Time and Death Freud - On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Lee Konstantinou about Tolkien's right-wing (or neo-reactionary) fans in Silicon Valley. Lee's essay Mythic Capital: How Tolkien is Whispering in the Ears of America's Most Powerful Men, is out now from Arc. Long-time listeners will know that this is our third time talking about this subject -- our first episode on the subject, from November 2022, can be found here, and our second, from July 2024 about then-VP nominee JD Vance, can be found here. Lee Konstantinou is a Professor of English at the University of Maryland whose writing has been featured in Slate, Arc, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. More Lee: Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Strangers in a Strange Land: Science-fictional Notes on the "Abundance" Agenda Cool Characters: Irony and American Fiction Something is Broken In Our Science Fiction Further reading/listening: Tally (Spectre, 8/24) - Tolkien's Deplorable Cultus Canavan (Dissent, 1/25) - Tolkien Against The Grain Kakutani (NYT, 5/25) - Why Silicon Valley's Most Powerful People Are So Obsessed With Hobbits Douthat (NYT, 6/25) (audio) - Peter Thiel and the Antichrist Gellman (The Atlantic, 11/23) - Peter Thiel is Taking A Break From Democracy Alexander (Substack, 5/25) - Moldbug Sold Out Gabor (Phenomenal World, 2/25) - How To DOGE USAID Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam discuss chapters 17 and 18 of the Quenta Silmarillion, including the coming of men into Beleriand, the death of Fingolfin, and Hurin and Huor's visit to Gondolin. Primary sources: The Silmarillion | The Lord of the Rings | The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Robert Tally about his new book The Mismeasure of Orcs: A Critical Reassessment of Tolkien's Demonized Creatures, out now from McFarland Books. Robert Tally is a Professor of English at Texas State University. He's written extensively about Tolkien and Marxist literary criticism. More Rob: Representing Middle-earth: Tolkien, Form, and Ideology JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit: A Critical Companion Let Us Now Praise Famous Orcs: Simple Humanity in Tolkien's Inhuman Creatures Demonizing The Enemy, Literally: Tolkien, Orcs, and the Sense of the World Wars The Southern Phoenix Triumphant: Richard Weaver, or, the Origins of Contemporary U.S. Conservatism Also mentioned: Bould/Mieville (ed.) - Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction Croft et. al (ed.) - Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey Fonstad - Atlas of Middle-Earth Jameson - Archaeologies of the Future Jameson - Fables of Aggression Jameson - The Political Unconscious Lukas - The Historical Novel Mills - The Wretched of Middle-Earth: An Orkish Manifesto Mohler (Existential Comics) - The Council of Elrond Sofge - Orc Holocaust Stuart - Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-Earth Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam talk to Professor Stephen Yandell about Beowulf and the many ways it inspired Tolkien. Steve Yandell is a medievalist and Tolkien scholar who has been a Professor of English at Xavier University since 2003. He regularly teaches courses on both Tolkien and medieval literature, including Beowulf. More Steve: "A Pattern Which Our Nature Cries Out For": The Medieval Tradition of the Ordered Four in the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien Cruising Faery: Queer Desire in Giles, Niggle, and Smith Selection from Math Son of Mathonwy, from the Mabinogi The translations: Tolkien - Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary Heaney - Beowulf: A New Verse Translation Headley - Beowulf: A New Translation Primary sources: Tolkien - Beowulf: The Monsters and The Critics (PDF) The Lord of the Rings The Silmarillion Also mentioned: Howarth - 1066: The Year of the Conquest Leyerle - The Interlace Structure of Beowulf Leave us a review! Email us at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which co-hosts Kenny and Sam discuss chapters 15 and 16 of the Quenta Silmarillion, including the founding of Gondolin, Thingol's abolition of Quenya, and the tragic tale of Eöl, Beleriand's palest and weirdest elf. Primary sources: The Silmarillion | The Lord of the Rings | The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien Also mentioned: The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin The Summer Book - Tove Jansson Butcher's Crossing - John Williams Alchemy is real Leave us a review! Send us an email at [email protected]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.