Come join Tolkien scholar Kirk Sprague-Williams for a 50 min exploration of Professor J.R.R. Tolkien and how this language professor at Oxford came to be the grandfather of the modern fantasy genre. The first part of the presentation will cover the Professor himself. Where he came from what motivated him and how the realm of Middle Earth came be. We will touch on the languages that influenced his development of the elvish language, and how from that came the development of the world itself. Then we will have an open discussion on how he has influenced modern pop culture and spawned a generation of writers to delve into the concepts of good and evil though the fantasy genre.