Signum News & Events: 9-15 October | Welcome to Signum University’s weekly newsletter. Here we share with you the upcoming events, courses, happenings, and news relevant to the Signum community. We’re glad you’re part of our community, and we hope to connect with you at one of our upcoming events or one of our upcoming courses! | | |
EverLearn
EverLearn is Signum’s non-credit program developed to provide dynamic opportunities for lifelong personal growth and enrichment.
| | Announcements from the EverLearn Team! | | |
What if I want to LEARN a ton of Signummy things and create this dream project I designed in my head?
We’ve got you.
Signum Tutorials
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Throughout October, early-bird pricing of $140 USD will open for our entire Winter Season — December, January, and February — with a full catalogue of planned modules.
During October, you can pre-enroll in any modules you’re hoping to participate in during the Winter Season. Pre-enrolling during this window not only helps us plan and confirm modules, but also allows you to take advantage of the early-bird pricing.
The cost is always One Token AND at pre-enrollment time you can purchase a new Token for the early-bird price! At the end of October, regular pricing of $175 USD per Token will resume (you can always use a previously-purchased Token!) Write to EverLearn@SignumU.org with any questions.
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Sarah J. about EverLearn:
Having taken "Fall of Gondolin" after also taking "Beren and Luthien" & "Children of Hurin", I'm finally getting more Tolkien's Legendarium fit into my brain. It was lovely to start seeing the connections between these Tales as well as become more familiar with the geography of Middle-earth. And Sara [Brown] reigns as 'context guru' to add to my understanding and she is a top-notch facilitator.
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Start Your EverLearn Journey!
One month-long module, live online, designed to fit your schedule. Engage with world-class instructors and like-minded learners every month. If you have any questions along the way or would like any more information about EverLearn, simply let us know at everlearn@signumu.org. We’d love to hear from you!
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Signum Press
Signum Press is proud to present two new books from Sparrow Alden!
Sparrow's Morning Meanders: The Wheel of the Year is available as a paperback on Amazon and an ebook in the Signum Store. Walk through the calendar from the diamond-dusted first mornings of November through the year with a meditation for each day (sometimes two). Sparrow F. Alden and her dogs celebrate the change of seasons and neopagan holidays with adventure, curiosity, whimsy, and longing. Together they face winter blues, mud season, grief, fear, and deep joy. Read one a day (sometimes two). Walk through your own landscape without a goal, content to let the path reveal itself in the ancient dances of time. Come on a year of Morning Meanders.
Sparrow's Morning Meanders: Advent Meditations is also available as a paperback on Amazon and an ebook in the Signum Store. Promises whisper through growing darkness. An impulse to simply go interrupts a common life. In this month of poems, a non-Christian woman explores the beauty and call of Advent: she finds universality in stars, crisp mornings, and new life. And she does not go alone.
Congratulations to Sparrow!
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Thesis Theatre
Each of Signum's master’s students writes a thesis at the end of their degree program, exploring a topic of their choice. The Thesis Theatre is their opportunity to present their research to a general audience, and answer questions. All are welcome to attend!
"To Work an Enchantment upon Them: Movement through Enchantment into the Otherworld in Tolkien’s Legendarium"
by Shannon (Shae) Rossi
October 10, 2026
The connection between J.R.R. Tolkien and the Celtic Otherworld has been much
discussed. This paper is a study of the methods that Tolkien uses to move both
his readers and his own characters into the Otherworld, also known as
Enchantment or Faërie. In order to identify the author’s influences, an overview
of the Celtic Otherworld is presented, as would have been familiar and available
to Tolkien during his life. Themes of Time, Liminality, Music, Supernaturality,
and Abundance are explored and discussed. The paper then turns to Tolkien and
explains the connection between these themes, the Otherworld, Tolkien’s Faërie,
and the state of or physical manifestation of Enchantment. A deep dive and close
reading of a number of Tolkien’s works is then undertaken, in order to parse the
techniques the author uses to evoke Enchantment / Faërie in the reader or
characters. Rather than copying the original Celtic stories, Tolkien leans into the
tales and themes as a basis for his own, using them to lend weight and credence
to his own legendarium, so that immersion leads to credibility and realism. His
works are not direct copies, however, but build upon the stable ground an
understood reality provides.
Click here to register for the Thesis Theatre Zoom!
Shannon (Shae) Rossi is a Tolkien scholar, writer, game designer, and cancer survivor. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in English with a concentration in Folklore from Smith College and will soon graduate with a Masters degree in English Language and Literature, with a concentration in Tolkien studies, from Signum University. When not studying, Shae does yoga, tai chi, belly dance, medieval reenactment, sings, swims with her mermaid pod, and hikes the woods with her aging pup, Bjorn in hopes of stumbling into Faërie. While currently a Senior Quest Designer on Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, Shae previously wrote and designed quests for The Lord of the Rings Online. A love of languages led her to studying Spanish, Japanese, and Old Norse, as well as working as a course writer for Pimsleur Language Programs. A newfound obsession with k-dramas is adding Korean to the list.
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Grad School
Signum University’s M.A. in Language and Literature focuses on close, critical readings of classical and contemporary texts in their historical and conceptual contexts. The Master’s Degree in Language and Literature is designed with the following objectives in mind:
- To equip our students to rediscover languages in their literary contexts by pursuing language acquisition for scholarly research.
- To develop in our students the ability to enjoy, research, and discuss literary texts in a meaningful way, bringing depth and creativity to ongoing academic conversations.
- To encourage our students to connect with other scholars and creatives in their specific fields of interest.
- To guide our students through the process of creating and presenting a quality capstone project.
News from the Grad School!
Did you know you can purchase the recorded lectures of select Grad School courses to listen and learn at your leisure? Indeed!
Like this one - Germanic Myths and Legends with Carl Edlund Anderson, Larry Swain, Nelson Goering, Paul Peterson
This lecture pack introduces the myths and heroic legends of the medieval Germanic world, ranging from Beowulf, the Eddas, the Nibelungenlied, the Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, the Saga of the Volsungs, and Waltharius. It focuses on this rich variety of literature by comparing texts from across the Germanic world that cover mythological and related legendary traditions within the textual culture of pagan and Christian medieval Europe. The readings are intentionally drawn from literary giants of medieval Germanic literature (in modern English translation), and the highlight of this course is depth in the traditional philological sense, rather than breadth. The lectures and discussions are intended to contextualize the wider cultural and historical contexts of the texts, including reflections of these works across a large time, space, and tradition.
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Signum Events
Signum Regional Moots
Each month, Dr. Corey Olsen, The Tolkien Professor and president of Signum University, hits the road to places across the globe for a gathering of people who share our joy of Tolkien, speculative fiction, languages, creative writing, and everything that we do at Signum through our Regional Moot Program. This is a chance to not only meet Corey, but to meet other people where you live, and online, that share your passions and curiosities. If you don't live near where we're gathering next, you can always join the conversation remotely for a fun day of presentations, stimulating talks, and creative workshops!
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Middle Moot 2026: Shaping Our World: The Power of Music and the Spoken Word
National WWI Museum and Memorial, Kansas City, MO, USA
October 17, 2026
Throughout Tolkien’s works we see the power of song and words wrought for both good and evil. The music of the Ainur and the words of Ilúvatar bring the vision of the world into being (“Therefore I say: Eä! Let these things Be!”). Finrod and Sauron engage in a powerful battle of song. Gildor bestows a blessing on Frodo at their parting and names him Elf-friend, which Goldberry later can perceive when she meets him. Tom sings Old Man Willow to sleep and drives away the Barrow Wight with his singing. Morgoth, in his bitterness and envy, curses Húrin’s offspring with devastating effect, and Saruman uses his voice in attempt to manipulate others and bend their will to his own purposes. Fëanor and his sons swear a “terrible and blasphemous oath” that drives them to commit numerous atrocities, and ultimately their own destruction. Proverbs 18:21 states the “Death and life are in the power of the tongue..”, and this theme is certainly woven throughout the Legendarium.
We also see how storytelling can bring comfort and encouragement: Strider comforts the Hobbits at Weathertop with the tale of Beren and Luthien, and Sam recites ‘Oliphant’ under the shadow of the Black Gate. Reading aloud, and telling stories has a profound impact on the hearer – it brings out the musicality of the words on page, comforts and soothes, stirs courage, and gives us the Elven ability to create visions in the mind of the hearer.
We will explore this theme with activities that include opportunities reading aloud, reciting favourite passages and/or poetry, singing, and more! You are also invited to join us the evening before Middle Moot (Friday, 16 October) for Tolkien Trivia Night with Dr. Corey Olsen – the Tolkien Professor – and the Withywindle Smial of Kansas City.
New England Moot 2026: The Second Breakfast Club: Food, Feasting, and Famine in the Legendarium
Studio Lab, Derry, NH, USA
October 24, 2026
From the seed-cakes of Bag End to the lembas of Lórien, from Beorn’s honeyed cream to Gollum’s raw fish, food in Tolkien’s legendarium stimulates both body and soul. Food and drink in Tolkien also connects to ritual, gender, class, and the environment. A single Ent draught from Wellinghall, salted pork from Bree, or the wine of the Elvenking’s halls; each carries economic, political, and sometimes even liturgical weight. It is a moral language, a marker of civilization, a weapon of hospitality, and sometimes a haunting absence. The “Second Breakfast Club” invites presentations that take food, drink, or their lack of through famine, war, and pestilence, as a narrative, theological, and ecological force in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and beyond.
Ideas to nourish your imagination include:
- The Politics of Poaching: How does Gollum’s diet (raw fish, orc scraps) mark him as irredeemably “other” while Sam’s cooking of coneys shows skill and care?
- The Wines of Dorwinion: Trade routes, luxury goods, and the hidden economy of Middle-earth.
- Beorn’s Table: Vegetarian hospitality and the ethics of eating in a world with sentient animals and Ents.
- “Po-ta-toes”: The humble potato as a symbol of hobbit resilience, a New World crop in a pseudo-medieval world, and the physics of boiling, mashing, and sticking in a stew.
We welcome close readings, comparative studies, and interdisciplinary approaches (history, anthropology, religion, ecology, disability studies, etc.) that examine the edible and the inedible, the feast and the fast, the communal table and the solitary crumb.
Carolina Moot 2026: The Salt of Middle-earth: Minor Characters Who Season the Tale
Drury Inn & Suites Charlotte Northlake, Charlotte, NC, USA
November 7, 2026
Aragorn had a reforged sword. Gandalf had a ring of fire. But Barliman Butterbur had a bad memory and a good heart, and that’s enough to change the course of history. This year’s Carolina Moot celebrates the minor characters in Tolkien’s legendarium. The smaller voices, the one‑scene wonders, and the quieter souls of Middle-earth: characters who carry no rings, speak no prophecies, and wield no legendary blades, yet without them the story would taste of nothing.
Possible ideas for proposals might include:
- A study on your favorite minor character from The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and The History of Middle-earth.
- Creative submissions: a monologue from Bill the Pony, a letter from Ioreth, a song of the nameless Rohirrim
- Discussing what narrative work minor characters perform (comic relief, local knowledge, moral grounding)
- How minor characters reflect Tolkien’s views on ordinary life, community, or the dignity of labor
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Why readers so often remember a character who appears only a few times
The great tales are not woven by kings and warriors alone. They are seasoned by the farmer who lends a hand, the pony who carries the load, and the old woman who keeps talking long enough to jog people’s memories. We welcome proposals that give these characters the spotlight they deserve.
For a full list of all our confirmed Signum Regional Moots, click this link here.
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Mythgard Institute
The Mythgard Institute at Signum University provides an array of open-access educational programs and events for all to enjoy! Our purpose is to offer academic content in an accessible way, to build a fun and enthusiastic community, and to facilitate a space for sharing curated, quality, geeky content. Come as you are and join us!
WriterSpace
WriterSpace has a new schedule for the rest of the year. Join us!
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Signum University
1 Hardy Rd #389, Bedford, NH 03110
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