Christopher A Snyder

A response to our fractured political discourse, Hobbit Virtues speaks to the importance of "virtue ethics" by examining the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien-with particular attention to his hobbits. Tolkien's works resonate with so many readers in part because Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin demonstrate Classical, Judeo-Christian, Medieval, and even Hindu and Confucian virtues. Tolkien ennobles the small, the humble, and the marginalized in his...

The poet T.S. Eliot. The polo star Tommy Hitchcock. F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. This diverse group of Americans came to Oxford in the first quarter of the twentieth century--the Jazz Age--when the Rhodes Scholar program had just begun and the Great War had enveloped much of Europe. Scott Fitzgerald created his most memorable character--Jay Gatsby, the Oxford man in the pink suit--shortly after his and Zelda's visit to Oxford. Fitzgerald's creation...