Below you’ll find one of three abstracts submitted for presentation at the Society for Educational Studies 2024 annual conference in Oxford. All three were accepted. I chose to present this one, as it aligned most closely with my current line of research. You can find the other accepted abstract here. The same abstracts were submitted for the Jubilee Centre’s 2025 annual conference, but none were accepted.
In the abstract, I argue that in the face of climate collapse, what children need is radical hope – a virtue directed at future goodness that lies beyond current comprehension. I propose that the stories of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially The Lord of the Rings, might be effective in cultivating this virtue. In Tolkien’s legendarium, goodness is associated not only with hope, but also with nature – a particularly resonant message in light of the climate crisis.
A year later, I submitted the same abstract to the University of Birmingham School of Education Research and Scholarship Conference 2025. It was accepted, and I delivered the presentation below. I used the following quotes to illustrate my argument:
Gandalf at the council of Elrond, FOTR:
“There are many things in the deep waters; and seas and lands may change. And it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of men, or for a passing age of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one.”
Frodo/Gandalf in Moria, FOTR:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
When Frodo and Sam are in Mordor, ROTK:
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
Gandalf in The Hobbit film:
“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”
(The last one was written by Philippa Boyens, capturing a very Tolkienian sentiment.)