Giuseppe Pezzini

Beppe Pezzini is Associate Professor in Latin at Corpus Christi College, Oxford which he joined in 2021, after five beautiful years of teaching in St Andrews (2016–2021), and research fellowships at Magdalen College Oxford (2013–2015) and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2016). He holds a BA and an MA in Classics from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. He is a member of the RSE Young Academy Scotland and the Young Academy of Europe, and an associate member of the ITIA Institute at the University of St Andrews.

He worked as an assistant editor for the Oxford Dictionary of Medieval Latin, and has published especially on Latin language and literature, philosophy of language, and the theory of fiction, ancient and modern, including above all Tolkien’s views on the ‘mystery of literary creation’. He is the Tolkien Editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies, he curated a major exhibition on JRR Tolkien in 2021, and is the main Tolkien Consultant for the forthcoming movie The Hunt for Gollum.

Tolkien-related Publications:

(2026) (ed.) J.R.R. Tolkien and G.B. Smith: With Winds in Our Ears (London: Palgrave)

(2026), Review of Townend, M. (2024), J.R.R. Tolkien: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford : Oxford University Press), Journal of Inklings Studies 16: 117–120.
(2025) Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

(2025), Review of Williams, H. (2025), J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and the Classics (London : Bloomsbury), Acta Classica 68: 152–7. 

(2025), ‘Tolkien and Newman: Towards a Theology of History’, in A. Freeman (ed.), Tolkien among the Theologians (Zurich and Jena: Walking Tree), 177–99.

(2025), ‘Tolkien e il rinnovamento della storia’, in S. Budini (ed.), Il consiglio e la corona: l’arte della politica nella Terra di Mezzo (Rome: Eterea), 92–103.

(2025), ‘Tolkien e il mistero della creatività’, in L. Allodi and M. Andolfo (eds), L’esperienza mistica tra sociologia, filosofia, e teologia (Milan: Vita e pensiero), 319–334.

(2024) (ed.) with O. Palusci, Nel Tempo di Bilbo Baggins: (ri)leggere The Hobbit di J.R.R. Tolkien, ContactZone Special issue (Napoli: Paolo Loffredo Editore)

(2024), ‘They will have need of Wood: Sub-creazione ed ecologia integrale in Tolkien’, in F. Bergamini (ed.) Tolkien e l’attualità del Mito (Rome: EDUSC), 43–64. 

(2024), 'Review of Richard Ovenden and Catherine McIlwaine (eds.) (2022), The Great Tales Never End: Essays in Memory of Christopher Tolkien (Oxford: Bodleian Library)', Journal of Inklings Studies 14: 103–6.

(2023) (ed.) Tolkien and the Relation between Sub-creation and Reality (The Journal of Inklings Studies: Special Issue 3, Edinburgh University Press).

(2022), ‘‘Classical’ Narratives of Decline in Tolkien: Renewal, Accommodation, Focalization’, in M. Paprocki and A. Matz, eds., Tolkien and the Graeco-Roman World, Thersites 15: 25–51

(2021), with Emmanuele Riu, L'albero delle storie: Tolkien e la polifonia della creazione (Castel Bolognese: Itaca)

(2021), ‘Coordinate di un viaggio nella Terra di Mezzo: un’impostazione metodologica’, in Mereghetti, A. and Sassanelli, I., eds., Vive in fondo alle cose la freschezza più cara (Rome: Aracne): 13–32.

(2021), ‘The Gods in (Tolkien’s) Epic’, in Williams, H. Tolkien and the Classical World (Zurich and Jena: Walking Tree Publishers): 73–103.

(2020), 'In Memoriam Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (1924–2020)', Journal of Inklings Studies 10: 69–71.

(2019) ‘The Lords of the West: Cloaking, Freedom and the Divine Narrative in Tolkien’s Poetics’, The Journal of Inklings Studies 9: 115–153.

(2019), 'Review of Fimi, D. & Honegger, T. (edd.) (2019), Sub-Creating Arda: World-Building in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Work, its Precursors and its Legacies (Zurich and Jena: Walking Tree Publications)', Journal of Inklings Studies 9: 200–204.

(2018) ‘The Authors of Middle Earth: Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation’, The Journal of Inklings Studies 8: 31–64.

Academic profile and full list of publications:

https://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-giuseppe-pezzini#tab-3575006