Corey Olsen

Academic career

Teaching and writing

After graduating, Olsen began teaching positions at Temple University, Columbia University, and Nyack College. He then became assistant professor of English at Washington College, with a specialty on J.R.R. Tolkien, Arthurian literature, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Thomas Malory.

Website and podcasting

In spring 2007, Olsen began The Tolkien Professor website and uploaded the 28-minute introductory lecture "How to Read Tolkien and Why". He felt that the site would not constrain his thoughts to academia, explaining, "which most people will never read". The podcast garnered over a quarter of a million downloads in its first year, Otherwise, Olsen has published several of his Washington College courses; one titled "Faerie and Fantasy" covers Middle English works like Sir Orfeo, Sir Launfal, and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle. The Washington Post likened Olsen to public intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco, and Stephen Jay Gould, but one comfortable in the new media.

Online education

In 2011, Olsen founded the Mythgard Institute, a center for the advancement of Tolkien research, In 2013, he left his job at Washington College to focus on Mythgard and Signum full-time. In 2018, Olsen announced that Signum University was to be formally entered for state certification via the New Hampshire Department of Education. Following some days of crowdfunding, they raised the over $23,000 required, and later in 2018, they began the process. In 2019, the New Hampshire Department of Education accepted Signum University's request to do business in the state.

Reception

Books

The Tolkien scholar Jason Fisher, reviewing Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit for Tolkien Studies, called Olsen "a great popularizer of Tolkien, both in and outside the classroom, for which he deserves the Tolkien community's gratitude and congratulations". Fisher described the book as informal and approachable, without academic apparatus, and almost relentlessly thorough. He found it "occasionally insightful", Steve Larson, in the Deseret News, describes the book as a companion volume, offering insight into the characters and writing. Kirkus Reviews states that Olsen gives a chapter-by-chapter account of the elements of the novel, including the way Bilbo's character develops through his adventures. Jennie Ramstad, in The Georgia Straight, finds that given the amount of detail in the analysis, the book works best as a companion, "read alongside The Hobbit itself". USA Today notes Olsen's comment that The Hobbit "can be read on an adult level" because of its discussion of evil and the question of fate versus free will, and his exhortation "Don't skip the songs! They will tell you so much about the characters".

Podcasts

In The Washington Post, Daniel de Vise notes that the million downloads of Olsen's podcasts made 'The Tolkien Professor' "one of the most popular medievalists in America". He called Olsen's use of "a smartly branded [website] and a legion of iTunes listeners" an unusual route to success, but certainly unlike the traditional "publish-or-perish" track for scholars seeking tenure. In his view, Olsen was "a new breed of public intellectual" who grew up around computers, and "took up a sort of permanent spiritual residence within Tolkien's imagined Middle-earth". He cites a follower of Olsen's podcasts, Dave Kale, as saying "He is a fantastic lecturer. He's engaging. He draws you in", adding that it costs over $44,000 per year to study at Washington College, but Olsen is effectively giving part of that education away for nothing with his online lectures, which are not peer-reviewed. Despite that, the college gave Olsen tenure in 2010, something that de Vise called "unusual for a scholar who hasn't published a book".

Publications