How can Tolkien’s myth of Númenor help us think critically about the complex dynamics of the Anthropocene?

On Sunday, July 2nd, Erik Jampa will be presenting a paper live at this year’s Tolkien Seminar in Leeds. This is a hybrid event (both in-person and online), and attendance is free, with schedule and registration information forthcoming. The paper will be available online after the event.

In line with the theme of this year’s seminar (Númenor: The Mighty and Frail), Erik will be presenting on ‘The Akallabêth and the Anthropocene: Myth, Ecology, and the Changing of the World,’ demonstrating how Tolkien’s account(s) of the rise and fall of Númenor can help us make sense of the ecological and political dynamics of the so-called ‘Anthropocene’ - the ‘Epoch of Humans.’ Even though this term was coined nearly 30 years after Tolkien’s death, these two ‘stories’ have a great deal of mutual resonance, and their intersection can provide important nuances to our understanding of the climate crisis.

Critical discussions surrounding the Anthropocene have unfortunately been almost entirely absent from Tolkien ecocriticism to date, making this paper a novel and timely contribution to both Tolkien Studies and Critical Ecology, demonstrating that mythopoeic fantasy can serve as a potent foundation for ecocritical discussions.

While spiritual and theological dimensions of the Akallabêth have been explored at length by numerous scholars, far less attention has historically been paid to Númenor’s history as a colonial power, and the ways that the Númenóreans contributed directly to the ‘changing of the world’ for thousands of years before their dramatic fall. They enriched themselves through deforestation, slave labour, and the primitive accumulation of resources, facilitating important technological and military advancements throughout the Second Age. And much like ‘real-world’ colonial powers, they justified their exploitative conquests with hierarchical ‘master identity’ paradigms that positioned them as superior to other human and non-human beings, while attempting to transcend their own mortality in a perilous ascent to ‘Peak Humanity.’ Many powerful Númenóreans were seduced by Sauron’s promise of absolute sovereignty and limitless progress, but much like our own project of global domination, their hubris triggered catastrophic planetary consequences.

In addition to an environmental and social history of Númenor, Erik will offer a critical analysis of the role of the Númenóreans in the narrativization (and potential distortion) of their own ‘history,’ and explore how their colonial legacy has been negotiated both ‘in-universe’ within the societies of the Third Age, and in primary-world adaptations of Tolkien’s work, including Amazon’s Rings of Power series.