{"id":524,"date":"2025-06-02T08:42:59","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T06:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/ateliercomparatiste\/?p=524"},"modified":"2026-03-27T17:11:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T16:11:36","slug":"comparative-perspectives-on-omentie-nolwe-tolkien-and-ecocriticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/ateliercomparatiste\/comparative-perspectives-on-omentie-nolwe-tolkien-and-ecocriticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Comparative Perspectives on Omenti\u00eb Nolw\u00eb<\/em>, Tolkien, and Ecocriticism\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Interviews with Professor Rachel Falconer and Professor Thomas Honegger of Omenti\u00eb Nolw\u00eb<\/em>\u2019s Organizing Committee <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

In addition to being the first international conference on J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s works hosted by a Swiss university, Omenti\u00eb Nolw\u00eb \u2013 Zurich Tolkien Conference<\/em>1<\/a><\/sup> <\/em>was a multilingual and interuniversity event, organized by the University of Zurich (UZH), the University of Lausanne (UNIL), and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU). After a successful first edition entitled \u201cEnvironmentalism in Tolkien\u2019s World: Ecocritical Perspectives on Middle-earth\u201d in March 2025, two members of the Organizing Committee\u2014Professor Rachel Falconer (UNIL) and Professor Thomas Honegger (FSU)\u2014have agreed to be interviewed and, thereby, delve deeper into the facets of ecocriticism and the importance of comparative approaches in the context of the conference.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A distinctive feature of Omenti\u00eb Nolw\u00eb <\/em>was the diversity of its speaker panel: beyond representing over six countries between them\u2014including Ukraine, the UK, and the USA\u2014, most of the speakers cannot be narrowly defined as ecocritics and instead approached this ecocritical inquiry from different fields, such as myth studies, philology, feminism, and affect theory. This diversity, both Honegger and Falconer emphasize during our conversations, was particularly enriching as it rendered the speaker panel complementary and interdisciplinary. Combining several thought-provoking approaches, the conference not only illuminated Tolkien\u2019s work from various angles but also created a space for confronting different theoretical frameworks. Honegger remarks that the conference\u2019s corpus was particularly suited for such operations: \u201cTolkien\u2019s work shows applicability,\u201d he explains, and it can thus accommodate a variety of (eco-)critical approaches and become a means of dialogue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he and Falconer also observe that, despite this mixture of academic cultures, most speakers focused on the ideological and ethical implications of the relationship between characters and their environment, an orientation particularly prominent in the Anglo-American ecocritical tradition (see e.g., Buekens, 2019, \u00a7 5-7). Falconer further indicates that, while object-oriented ontology was wholly absent from the conference, several contributions could be linked to material ecocriticism or deep ecology more specifically. This is notably the case in Dr. Alexandra Filonenko\u2019s discussion of archetypes and, perhaps more strikingly, Dr. Patrick Curry\u2019s eco-theory. Indeed, the concepts of enchantment and disenchantment in this theory align with nineteenth century writing that understands nature as a sacred and moral sphere that has value in and for itself, principles to which deep ecologist Arne Naess also aspires. Although deep ecology certainly resonates with Tolkien\u2019s writing, Falconer underlines that the linguistic and religious inflections of his environmental vision diverge from it, and Honegger further notes that the idea of stewardship based on biblical tradition \u2013 already proposed in Tolkien studies (Dickerson and Evans, 2011) \u2013 is particularly fitting for these texts.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ethical focus forms a striking contrast to a framework for the discussion of ecological writing often privileged in francophone contexts, namely \u00e9copo\u00e9tique<\/em>. Ecopoetics as such were certainly first proposed by the Briton Jonathan Bate (2000, p. 75), yet the French tradition distances itself from his approach (Posthumus, 2017, p. 176), and the creation of ecopoetics <\/em>is sometimes even directly attributed to francophone thinkers (Buekens, 2019, \u00a7 7). Francophone scholars thereby distinguish themselves from ecocriticism\u2014which is held to be somewhat dominated by an Anglo-American focus (Posthumus, 2017, p. 19)\u2014and advocate for a less politically engaged approach, preferring to instead focus on aesthetic and stylistic aspects of the literary depiction of the environment (p. 23).3<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Omenti\u00eb Nolw\u00eb <\/em>would neglect the preferred French perspective in favor of endorsing an Anglo-American orientation furthermore becomes salient through the concepts employed during the conference. Echoing her monograph on the topic\u2014The Map of Wilderland<\/em>\u2014, Dr. Amber Lehning\u2019s talk, for instance, engaged with the concept of wilderness, which certain francophone scholars identify as distinctly North American and inapplicable to the French context (Buekens, 2019, \u00a7 5). Similarly, various speakers repeatedly used the term environment<\/em> and variations thereof \u2013 the prominence of which is also noticeable in the conference\u2019s title \u2013, a notion that is widespread in Anglo-American ecological thinking but generally rejected in francophone contexts as inherently anthropocentric (Posthumus, 2017, p. 13-15). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the conference\u2019s lack of French speakers might have contributed to this theoretical orientation, Falconer mostly attributes it to the current political evolution in the world: though certainly aesthetic, Tolkien\u2019s environmental vision is characterized by a deeply ethical dimension, which renders a political reading inevitable in today\u2019s context. Honegger, in turn, ascribes this predominance to the fact that most ecocritical publications on Tolkien in English simply stem from this tradition. He also underlines that the Organizing Committee is eager to invite French scholars to the conference\u2019s next editions since putting the specific discourses of French tradition in dialogue with other theories would be particularly valuable for establishing a common ground for discussion.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He moreover remarks that comparative literature is highly relevant in the context of an event like Omenti\u00eb Nolw\u00eb<\/em> as it creates a space for exploring and understanding the relationship between humans and the environment across various cultures and the critics\u2019 unique theoretical perspectives. Falconer equally points out that the ways of living with the Earth shown in Tolkien\u2019s writing need to be confronted through different ecocritical readings. By multiplying our perspectives, she points out, \u201cour comfortable ideas about the destruction of the environment become complicated\u201d: we can thus challenge our settled Western notions about valuing nature and ask, for instance, whether the geography of Tolkien\u2019s environmental war involves a colonial legacy. Given the intercultural and multilingual appreciation for Tolkien\u2019s work, comparative approaches are also central to discovering cultural or even linguistic specificities of the ecocritical understanding of his environmental vision and, by extension, ecocriticism itself. Such comparative perspectives thus make it possible to contribute to the debate on the climate crisis in a meaningful way as a humanities scholar, which is also one of the goals Falconer pursued when joining the Organizing Committee at the end of last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works Cited<\/strong> <\/h6>\n\n\n\n