{"id":47237,"date":"2025-10-27T09:50:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T13:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=47237"},"modified":"2025-10-27T09:50:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T13:50:03","slug":"university-course-suggests-works-by-cs-lewis-tolkien-are-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/10\/university-course-suggests-works-by-cs-lewis-tolkien-are-racist.html","title":{"rendered":"University Course Suggests Works by CS Lewis, Tolkien Are Racist"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_47240\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47240\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/JRR-Tolkien_credit-Left-Shutterstock-Right-Petr-Kahanek-Shutterstock.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-47240\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/JRR-Tolkien_credit-Left-Shutterstock-Right-Petr-Kahanek-Shutterstock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-47240\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Shutterstock.com | Right: Petr Kahanek \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A university course is being slammed for suggesting that works by CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, the authors behind the much-loved works of <em>The Chronicles of Narnia <\/em>and <em>The Lord of the Rings<\/em> need to be \u201cdecolonized.\u201d The University of Nottingham offers a course last year entitled \u201cImagining &#8216;Britain&#8217;: Decolonising Tolkien et al\u201d taught by professor Onyeka Nubia. The course aims to \u201cexplore British mythology and, where necessary, decolonise and repopulate the narrative of British mythmaking.&#8221; This year\u2019s course is by the same professor is entitled \u201cImagining Britain: Decolonising and Repopulating the Mythology of the British Isles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Telegraph<\/em> reports that the course accuses Tolkien\u2019s work of \u201cethnic chauvinism\u201d against dark-skinned characters in the books, such as the orcs in the novels. \u201cIt adds that Tolkien\u2019s treatment of the fictional races shares in a tradition of \u2018anti-African antipathy,\u2019 in which people from Africa are painted as \u2018the natural enemy of the white man,\u2019\u201d asserted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2025\/10\/18\/lord-of-the-rings-tolkien-racist-way-of-the-world-woke\/\"><em>The Telegraph<\/em><\/a><em>. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Tolkien\u2019s critics were quick to defend his works, which have been widely read throughout the world and beloved by people on opposite ends of the political spectrum such as the very liberal Stephen Colbert and Vice President JD Vance. Writing for That Park Place, Marvin Montanaro ripped into modern literary criticism, which seeks to inject modern identities and values into classic works. \u201cThe truth is simpler: Tolkien\u2019s good-versus-evil dichotomy mirrors the moral universe of ancient myth, not modern identity politics. Light and darkness are spiritual metaphors \u2014 not racial descriptors,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/thatparkplace.com\/british-university-claims-tolkien-orcs-represent-people-of-color-and-lord-of-the-rings-is-racist\/\">argued Montanaro<\/a>. \u201cHis monsters are monstrous because they embody corruption, not because they have darker skin tones. And yet, modern academia keeps trying to drag Middle-earth into its cultural crossfire. It\u2019s not enough to debate Tolkien\u2019s worldbuilding or moral themes \u2014 now, professors want to \u2018decolonize\u2019 the very concept of myth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although Tolkien has periodically been accused of racism because of supposed racist undertones in his work, his defenders have often pointed out how he famously pushed back at German publishers for his book, <em>The Hobbit<\/em>, after German publishers in World War II tried to confirm he wasn\u2019t Jewish. \u201cBut if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of\u00a0<em>Jewish<\/em>\u00a0origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject\u2014which should be sufficient,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/on-the-time-j-r-r-tolkien-refused-to-work-with-nazi-leaning-publishers\/\">Tolkien wrote to the publisher<\/a>. \u201cI have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.\u201d <em>The Hobbit <\/em>would not be published in German until 1957.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A university course is being slammed for suggesting that works by CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, the authors behind the much-loved works of The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings need to be \u201cdecolonized.\u201d The University of Nottingham offers a course last year entitled \u201cImagining &#8216;Britain&#8217;: Decolonising Tolkien et al\u201d taught by&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":47240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>University Course Suggests Works by CS Lewis, Tolkien Are Racist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A University of Nottingham course faces backlash for claiming Tolkien and C.S. Lewis\u2019 classic works need to be \u201cdecolonized.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/10\/university-course-suggests-works-by-cs-lewis-tolkien-are-racist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"University Course Suggests Works by CS Lewis, Tolkien Are Racist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A University of Nottingham course faces backlash for claiming Tolkien and C.S. Lewis\u2019 classic works need to be \u201cdecolonized.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/10\/university-course-suggests-works-by-cs-lewis-tolkien-are-racist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-27T13:50:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/JRR-Tolkien_credit-Left-Shutterstock-Right-Petr-Kahanek-Shutterstock.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"University Course Suggests Works by CS Lewis, Tolkien Are Racist","description":"A University of Nottingham course faces backlash for claiming Tolkien and C.S. Lewis\u2019 classic works need to be \u201cdecolonized.\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/10\/university-course-suggests-works-by-cs-lewis-tolkien-are-racist.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"University Course Suggests Works by CS Lewis, Tolkien Are Racist","og_description":"A University of Nottingham course faces backlash for claiming Tolkien and C.S. Lewis\u2019 classic works need to be \u201cdecolonized.\"","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/10\/university-course-suggests-works-by-cs-lewis-tolkien-are-racist.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2025-10-27T13:50:03+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/JRR-Tolkien_credit-Left-Shutterstock-Right-Petr-Kahanek-Shutterstock.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/10\/university-course-suggests-works-by-cs-lewis-tolkien-are-racist.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/10\/university-course-suggests-works-by-cs-lewis-tolkien-are-racist.html","name":"University Course Suggests Works by CS Lewis, Tolkien Are Racist","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/10\/university-course-suggests-works-by-cs-lewis-tolkien-are-racist.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/10\/university-course-suggests-works-by-cs-lewis-tolkien-are-racist.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/JRR-Tolkien_credit-Left-Shutterstock-Right-Petr-Kahanek-Shutterstock.jpg","datePublished":"2025-10-27T13:50:03+00:00","dateModified":"2025-10-27T13:50:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"A University of Nottingham course faces backlash for claiming Tolkien and C.S. 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