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Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/oms/oms-2023.htm
Start Date
8-6-2023 1:00 PM
End Date
8-6-2023 1:50 PM
Description
This paper considers hellish aspects of The Lord of the Rings through an environmental bioethical framework focusing on the intersection of biopolitics, race, and ecology. Key figures that shall be examined include Sauron, Saruman, Uruk-hai, and the body of Middle-earth. Sauron shall be read as a Hades figure; they share numerous connections, such as their domain is hell, influence over invisibility (Hades’ cloak and Sauron’s Ring), characterization of giver of gifts, possession of dead bodies, and connection to the earth’s fertility (or lack). Sauron’s possession over dead bodies arises from the necropolitical power he incites over bodies in his sphere which causes them to exist in a state of living death. This biopolitical state inspires Sauron’s underlings, such as Saruman, to enact racially charged genetic experimentation on the bodies to create the Uruk-hai, whilst simultaneously degrading and ruining the ecological balance of Isengard and thus the body of Middle-earth. A hell on Middle-earth, or ‘Middle-hell’, is created through the enactment of unethical biopolitics that harm the bodies and ecology of Middle-earth. Reading the hellish landscapes in Middle-earth through an environmental bioethical lens may allow readings that explore the intersections arising therein.
Included in
Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Medieval Studies Commons, Modern Languages Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Other English Language and Literature Commons
Cloaked in Shadow: The Biopolitics of Sauron’s Middle-Hell
This paper considers hellish aspects of The Lord of the Rings through an environmental bioethical framework focusing on the intersection of biopolitics, race, and ecology. Key figures that shall be examined include Sauron, Saruman, Uruk-hai, and the body of Middle-earth. Sauron shall be read as a Hades figure; they share numerous connections, such as their domain is hell, influence over invisibility (Hades’ cloak and Sauron’s Ring), characterization of giver of gifts, possession of dead bodies, and connection to the earth’s fertility (or lack). Sauron’s possession over dead bodies arises from the necropolitical power he incites over bodies in his sphere which causes them to exist in a state of living death. This biopolitical state inspires Sauron’s underlings, such as Saruman, to enact racially charged genetic experimentation on the bodies to create the Uruk-hai, whilst simultaneously degrading and ruining the ecological balance of Isengard and thus the body of Middle-earth. A hell on Middle-earth, or ‘Middle-hell’, is created through the enactment of unethical biopolitics that harm the bodies and ecology of Middle-earth. Reading the hellish landscapes in Middle-earth through an environmental bioethical lens may allow readings that explore the intersections arising therein.
Comments
SESSION III
1:00 PM—1:50 Eastern
12:00 Noon—12:50 PM Central
11:00 AM—11:50 Mountain
10:00 AM—10:50 Pacific
5:00 PM—5:50 GMT