Queer Lodgings: A Tolkien Podcast

25/12/2024

A joyous and peaceful whatever-you-celebrate, Lodgers and Birches!

25/12/2024

Happy holidays, Birches & Lodgers! See you in the new year!

🎵"Ohhh, Dwarven Tree, OH Dwarven Tree!" 🎵

🎄🎄🎄

15/11/2024

New episode alert! https://buff.ly/3Z8fd75 We are so excited to bring you this interview with actor Adam Brown - Ori in the Jackson "Hobbit" films - as part of our series on Tolkien adaptations! Adam graciously joined us from the UK to discuss his experiences as a gay man in the production of the Hobbit movies (including adventures in Wellington gay bars), his fellow dwarves dropping dwarf slash fic art in their group chat, and his passion for British pantomime theatre (including touring "Mother Goose" with Sir Ian McKellen). Plus a never-before-told tale of a planned Moscow premiere for "The Desolation of Smaug" which was cancelled after actors and crew wrote a letter of concern regarding Russia's anti-LGBTQ policies.

14/11/2024

It's Trans Awareness Week! We love our trans friends, so let's all show our support for them this week and every week, especially in parts of the world where they've become politicized and demonized in culture wars. 🏳️‍⚧️❤️

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/M9EEmA1dV6sUqn52/

🏳️‍🌈November 13-19th is Transgender Awareness Week. 🏳️‍🌈

Want to become a stronger ally to those who are trans? Remember to stay active, speak up, and create safe spaces. Learn how to be a better ally: https://glaad.org/transgender/allies/

07/11/2024

Finnish Frodo speaks for all of us here.

(Listen to our recent adaptations episode for more context and to briefly escape the nightmare hellscape we seem to be walking right into like hobbits into Mordor! 😀😀😀😀)

05/11/2024

Birches, especially those in the US, there isn’t really comfort or reassurance or hope to offer today, except for this: no matter what happens, we have each other. We are all we have. Hold each other close in love; care for each other in solidarity. We love you, and are with you to the very end. ❤️❤️❤️

02/11/2024

28/10/2024

New episode alert! Tolkien Adaptations Part 1: The Rare, Weird, and Wonderful (yes, another series begins): https://buff.ly/4fo2NNJ

Alicia, Grace, and Leah are joined by Producer Tim to discuss some of the lesser-known adaptations of Tolkien's works. After each of us shares our personal philosophies about adaptation and adaptational changes in general, we dive into a rundown of Tolkien adaptations of every kind - from infamous foreign TV adaptations to stage shows, radio plays, video games, and more. Q***r connections? Samurai Boromir? Swol-um? Potato Eagle? It's all here, and then some!

25/10/2024

The only reason I don't want Tolkien kicking their asses in the afterlife is a niggling desire for hell to be real (in this one particular instance) because Reagan and Kissinger need to be getting lit the f**k up for eternity. Tolkien had some pretty strong feelings about unfit people seeking power, so maybe he'd enjoying pummeling a war criminal and the man whose racist and queer-phobic policies harmed (and killed) so many people that we're still dealing with it 40 years on between second breakfast and the mid-morning pipe w**d break.

“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) ... The most improper job of any man ... is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity …

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamating factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.” (Letter to Christopher, 1943)

16/10/2024

It’s happened: ya girl Leah has been published in Mythlore! 🤯🤯🤯

Look for the note, co-authored with friend of the pod Clare Moore, in the now live issue, and look for me deceased for appearing in a TOC just before Verlyn Fu***ng Flieger’s 💀💀💀

https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol43/iss1/13/

(Apparently Buffer borked my link so this one should work better)

A response to Dylan Henderson's article on "Women and Fertility in The Lord of the Rings" ( #142), highlighting some of the problematic ecocritical and gender essentialist premises of his argument.

01/10/2024

So here’s the deal - at some point, we’re going to have episodes where we get to talk about all of the bizarre little jerks who look to co-opt Tolkien for their weird right-wing extremist agenda.

But… we’re definitely not going to get to recording and releasing that episode before one of them hits the debate stage tonight, asking for voters to make him the Vice President of the USA.

So in the meantime, this episode of “Behind The Bastards” is one resource we recommend to examine why and how J.D. Vance (who we will refer to by that name, since ya don’t deadname people) weaves the works of J.R.R Tolkien into his deeply odd philosophy/worldview, particularly by following the philosophies of Curtis Yarvin (who a lot of these chuckleheads take inspiration from).

For the first significant mentions of J.D. Vance, head to about the 40 minute mark of the episode…but be warned, in the middle of this discussion, they *do* have to read some of Yarvin’s Badger Erotica for context. (Shrug emoji)

We’ll also include some articles about this phenomenon and how this extremely cringe dude who wants to be VP views the works of Tolkien, how he somehow connects Tolkien’s work to his power fantasies, goes about naming venture capital firms and military-industrial complex defense startups after parts of the Legendarium, and…maybe even thinks he’s Gandalf.

Please feel inspired to share any resources you’ve seen on this topic in the comments as well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpEg4LS3CT0

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-curtis-yarvin-the-philosopher-behind-j-d-vance/id1373812661?i=1000669798693

Robert sits down with the great Ed Helms to discuss Curtis Yarvin, the American philosopher of dictatorship whose ideas inspired J.D. Vance. (2 Part Series) S

01/10/2024

My dearest Lodgers and Birches, we have for you today the teaser no one wanted for our next episode. Whatever could we be covering?

27/09/2024

What a mood 🏳️‍🌈

18/09/2024

🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐 the science checks out

03/09/2024

Hello to the people who just learned about us at Dragon Con and Oxonmoot! Welcome to the fam, time to choose whether you're a part of the Lodgers or Birches, now 😂

01/09/2024

Alicia is on this DragonCon.TV update! Talking about the podcast, Tolkien content at Dragon Con, the Mythopoeic Society, and platforming of marginalized voices in Tolkien fandom and scholarship.

29/08/2024

Today marks two years of the podcast (our first proto episode was released today)! Thanks to all of the Lodgers and Birches who have resonated with what we're doing! We hope to continue long into the future (and if our ideas document is any indication, the world is stuck with us for a few years yet. She is long 😅)