Michael D. C. Drout
Michael D. C. Drout, Ph.D. (born 1968) is a writer, editor, and Medievalist known for overseeing the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment, published in 2006, and for founding the annual journal Tolkien Studies in 2004 with Douglas A. Anderson and Verlyn Flieger, which he edits still. Like Tolkien, Drout is a Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon specialist.
He is Professor of English at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and directs its Center for the Study of the Medieval.
He was a consultant for the PC game The Lord of the Rings Online.[1]
Biography[]
In 1997, Drout completed his doctorate at Loyola University Chicago, in English, with a dissertation concerning Anglo-Saxon literature.
Drout joined the faculty of Wheaton College, Massachusetts, in 1997, and has been Professor of English there since then. He founded and has directed, from 2012, the school's Center for the Study of the Medieval. As his first major contribution to Tolkien scholarship, Drout edited in 2002 Beowulf and the Critics, a presentation of J.R.R. Tolkien's lecture-and-essay series on the foundational poem Beowulf. This work earned the Mythopoeic Society's 2003 Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies.[2] Drout has since recorded the text of Beowulf in Old English.[3]
Since founding Tolkien Studies and completing the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, both hallmarks of Tolkien secondary literature, Drout has written many published papers on Tolkien, language, and Medieval literature, such as "A Mythology for Anglo-Saxon England" in Jane Chance's Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader (2004) and "The Tower and the Ruin: The Past in J.R.R. Tolkien's Works" in J.R.R. Tolkien: The Forest and the City (2013).
Drout has been a Guest and Visiting Lecturer at Signum University, founded by Corey Olsen.
He resides in Dedham, Massachusetts, USA.[1]
Documentary involvement[]
- National Geographic: Beyond the Movie - The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)
- Of Sorcerers and Men: Tolkien and the Roots of Modern Fantasy Literature (Barnes and Noble's “Portable Professor” audio series, 2006)
- Tolkien and the West: Reclaiming Europe’s Lost Literary Tradition (Crescite Group's "The Modern Scholar" audio series, 2012)
- Icons Unearthed: J.R.R. Tolkien (by The History Channel, forthcoming)
External links[]
- Faculty page
- Personal website
- ResearchGate page
- Curriculum Vitae (containing full bibliography)
- Interview with the Prancing Pony Podcast
- Interview by Michael Martinez for Middle-earth Blog
- Guest essay "Please Don’t Make a Tolkien Cinematic Universe" for The New York Times, September 1, 2022