“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Have you always wanted to read The Lord of the Rings but never got around to it? Or have you been longing to return to Middle-earth, but perhaps have been waiting for the right occasion to do so? If the answer is yes, the moment could be ripe to take a journey through this great myth for our time—alongside a fellowship of student travelers and with a guide who has been exploring this world for nearly twenty-nine years.
It is my absolute honor and joy to be teaching the course “The Mythopoetic Imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien: Reading The Lord of the Rings” in collaboration with Kosmos Institute this Autumn 2025. Please join us as we spend twelve weeks reading our way through J.R.R. Tolkien’s great work, The Lord of the Rings.
Learn More and Register
Course Description
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien has been a beloved story to several generations since its publication in the mid-1950s. The story has a timeless quality to it, and engages with a complex struggle between good and evil, death and immortality, power and freedom. The Lord of the Rings blends otherworldly romance with the high rhetoric of epic mythology, at times interwoven with the internal depths of the nineteenth century novel and the political climate of the twentieth century. As Tolkien’s close friend and colleague C.S. Lewis once said: “Nothing quite like it has been done before. This book is like lightning from a clear sky . . . here are beauties which pierce like swords and burn like cold iron.”
The Lord of the Rings is a text treated by many as a sacred text, one to be returned to year after year, or read aloud with loved ones. The Lord of the Rings has become a myth for our time. This course offers a journey through Tolkien’s magnum opus in a community of learning, guided by a scholar who has spent more than two decades engaging Tolkien’s writings and artwork. This course is designed both for newcomers to Tolkien’s narrative, and for veteran travelers through Middle-earth’s many realms. Together we will explore the grand themes and hidden nuances of Tolkien’s epic story, connecting The Lord of the Rings to the larger mythology of Middle-earth, and situating Tolkien’s process of writing within his own powerful experiences of the imaginal realm.
To learn more and register, please visit: Kosmos Institute – The Mythopoetic Imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien
Becca Tarnas 
I kind of lost track, but pretty sure I’ve read LOTR 12 times.
Also, really enjoyed your “Journey to the Imaginal Realm.”
Should be fun, not sure if I can sign up yet, but will keep posted.
This course will be quite similar to Journey to the Imaginal Realm, so if you already took that this one might not be for you—although you never know what new material will arise in the live Q&A sessions!
Was reminded of the great Tolkien exhibit at The Morgan Library in NYC several years ago. Tolkien’s art demonstrated much of what you said in the book and resonated with Jung’s work remarkably. His WWI experience and how important it was to his development was driven home. Survivor guilt?
You probably know this, but Inklings debated allegory a fair bit. Lewis intentionally made Narnia “allegorical” with Aslan as a stand-in for Jesus. Tolkien didn’t want to go there, but one can still see things that seem awful darned close. He admitted in a BBC interview in 60’s that angels and valar are basically interchangeable.
Also, Tolkien’s work on Beowulf was overtly Christian. So the overall impression of his oeuvre was that his Catholicism was thinly veiled throughout.
Also of big interest, and long thought of doing a thesis on how LOTR and the worldview of Middle Earth is more Manichaean or even late Zoroastrian than orthodox Christian. JRRT would have denied it and I would enjoy proving him wrong.
Have fun!
Hi, Becca, I took this course (or one similar) back in 2018 and thoroughly enjoyed it. During that time I was working on a quilt that I eventually titled “The Star of Eärendil”. I meant to send you a photo back then, but didn’t. The class was very insightful, and I enjoy hearing your elvish pronunciations! Thank you! Penny Key
One other Tolkien comment, if I may. His long and happy marriage to the love of his life, who was Luthien Tinuviel in the flesh, doesn’t get enough attention. Whether or not he meant to, he lived a life of integrated masculine and feminine energies.
I do hope more people get to do that. There’s little hope for humanity if they don’t.
—A foolish old romantic.