We look forward to seeing you at 7:00pm on Monday, September 23 in Winants Auditorium. Dr. David O'Connor, professor in the departments of Philosophy and Classics at the University of Notre Dame will present "Perilous Beauty: Tattoos, Redheads, and Tolkien".

J.R.R. Tolkien reflected deeply, and in a distinctively Catholic way, on the power of beauty to enchant and corrupt. Why in The Lord of the Rings do Men so often fear the Elf Queen Galadriel as "perilous"? These perils of Elvish beauty are Tolkien's Catholic version of anxieties explored, for example, in Shakespeare's ambiguous portrait of the seductiveness of Cleopatra; in Herman Melville's fascination (in Moby Dick) with the exotic beauty of tattoos; and in the Pre-Raphaelite painters' obsession with stunning redheads. Tolkien's Catholic response to the problem of perilous beauty comes into sharper focus when we compare his art to these great predecessors.

Co-sponsored by Hope College's Office of Arts & Humanities and these departments:
Art and Art History, History, Philosophy, and Religion