Jason Fisher

Jason Fisher is a Tolkien scholar and winner of multiple Mythopoeic Scholarship Awards, including one in 2014 for his book Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays. He served as the editor of the Mythopoeic Society's monthly Mythprint from 2010 to 2013. He is the author of many book chapters, academic articles, and encyclopedia entries on J. R. R. Tolkien.

Biography
Jason Aldrich Fisher was born in 1970. He lives in Dallas, Texas. He is a software developer. He has worked since 2002 as an independent scholar specialising in the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, his literary circle the Inklings, and fantasy more widely.

Fisher has contributed to the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia (including on 'Mythology for England', 'Family Trees', and 'Palantíri'), to the Tolkien Studies journal, to the Literary Encyclopedia, and to the Inklings journal Mythlore, among other journals and websites, as well as chapters of Tolkien criticism. He has been interviewed on PBS about Tolkien's 1937 book The Hobbit.

Tolkien and the Study of His Sources
Reviewing Tolkien and the Study of His Sources for Mythlore, Mike Foster writes that Fisher, and Tom Shippey who wrote the book's introduction, are right in pursuing Tolkien's sources, despite the author's objections; the book usefully clarifies Tolkien's approach for readers not familiar with early 20th century adventure stories and medieval stories of the saints. In Foster's view, while scholars have long ago picked the "low-hanging fruit", the book "proves that ... plenty of fruit still remains for the picking".

Emily Auger, reviewing the same work in Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, writes that "Fisher ... not only explains what source studies are, he explains how good source studies should be done".

Books

 * 2011 (editor) Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays, McFarland & Company.
 * 2012 (editor, with Salwa Khoddam and Mark R. Hall) C.S. Lewis and the Inklings: Discovering Hidden Truth, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
 * 2015 (editor, with Salwa Khoddam and Mark R. Hall) C.S. Lewis and the Inklings: Reflections on Faith, Imagination, and Modern Technology, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.


 * 2006 "'Man does as he is when he may do as he wishes': The Perennial Modernity of Free Will." Tolkien and Modernity, Volume 1. Ed. Thomas Honegger and Frank Weinreich. Walking Tree Publishers, 145-75.
 * 2007 "From Mythopoeia to Mythography: Tolkien, Lönnrot, and Jerome". The Silmarillion: Thirty Years On. Ed. Allan Turner. Walking Tree Publishers, 111-38.
 * 2008 "Tolkien's Felix Culpa and the Third Theme of Ilúvatar". Truths Breathed Through Silver: The Inklings' Moral and Mythopoeic Legacy. Ed. Jonathan Himes, with Joe R. Christopher and Salwa Koddham. Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 93-109.
 * 2009 "Foreword". A Hobbitonian Anthology of Articles on J.R.R. Tolkien and His Legendarium. Mark T. Hooker. Llyfrawr, vii–x.
 * 2010 "Horns of Dawn: The Tradition of Alliterative Verse in Rohan". Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien. Ed. Bradford Lee Eden. McFarland, 7–25.
 * 2011 "Sourcing Tolkien's 'Circles of the World': Speculations on the Heimskringla, the Latin Vulgate Bible, and the Hereford Mappa Mundi". Middle-earth and Beyond: Essays on the World of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Kathleen Dubs and Janka Kaščáková. Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 1-17.
 * 2012 "Dwarves, Spiders, and Murky Woods: J.R.R. Tolkien's Wonderful Web of Words". C.S. Lewis and the Inklings: Discovering Hidden Truth. Ed. Salwa Khoddam and Mark R. Hall, with Jason Fisher. Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 104–115.
 * 2012 "The Authors and the Critics: Tolkien, Gaiman, and Beowulf". Mythological Dimensions of Neil Gaiman. Ed. Anthony Burdge, Jessica Burke, and Kristine Larsen. Kistsune, 21-34.
 * 2014 "Aux sources des 'Cercles du Monde' de Tolkien — Spéculations sur la Heimskringla, la Vulgate et la mappa mundi de Hereford.” Tolkien, le façonnement d’un monde, volume 2: Astronomie et Géographie. Ed. Didier Willis. Le Dragon de Brume.
 * 2014 "Dwarves, Spiders, and Murky Woods: J.R.R. Tolkien's Wonderful Web of Words". Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism: Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Short Story Writers, & Other Creative Writers Who Died Between 1900 & 1999. Volume 299. Gale / Cengage Learning.
 * 2014 "Tolkien’s Wraiths, Rings, and Dragons: An Exercise in Literary Linguistics". Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey. Ed. John Wm. Houghton, et al. McFarland, 97–114.
 * 2015 "The Erlking Rides in Middle-earth: Tradition, Crux, and Adaptation in Tolkien and Goethe". Ed. Khoddam, Salwa, Mark R. Hall, and Jason Fisher. C.S. Lewis and the Inklings: Reflections on Faith, Imagination, and Modern Technology. Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 163–78.
 * 2016 "The Riddles and the Cup: Medieval Germanic Motifs in The Hobbit". Critical Insights: The Hobbit. Ed. Stephen W. Potts. Grey House, 49–67.
 * 2017 "Tolkien and Source Criticism: Remarking and Remaking". J.R.R. Tolkien. Volume II: The Roots of Middle-earth. Ed. Stuart D. Lee. Routledge, Critical Assessment of Major Writers. 77–92.
 * 2018 "The Foolhardy Philologist". "A Wilderness of Dragons": Essays in Honor of Verlyn Flieger. Ed. John D. Rateliff. Wayzata, MN: The Gabbro Head, 72–93.

Awards and distinctions

 * 2010 Best Scholar Paper, 13th Annual C.S. Lewis and Inklings Conference
 * 2011 Best Scholar Paper, 14th Annual C.S. Lewis and Inklings Conference
 * 2012 Best Scholar Paper, 15th Annual C.S. Lewis and Inklings Conference
 * 2013 Best Scholar Paper, 16th Annual C.S. Lewis and Inklings Conference
 * 2014 Best Scholar Paper, 17th Annual C.S. Lewis and Inklings Conference
 * 2014 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award