Besides her BA (Hons) in English and History, Sara has an MSc in International History, Politics & Economics from the London School of Economics, for which she wrote a thesis on The Problem of the Gold Standard in International Politics and Economics in the Nineteenth Century. She completed her Ph.D. in Literature at Salford University in 2013. Entitled From Abjection to Alchemy in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth Legendarium, the thesis explores the way in which Tolkien was responding to the anxieties of the post-war world in the mid twentieth century, drawing on (amongst others) the theories of Julia Kristeva and Donna Haraway. Sara’s research interests are primarily in Tolkien Studies. She was the 2023 Tolkien Society Award winner for Best Article for her article “All that glisters is not gold” (Mallorn 63, Winter ’22), and the 2024 winner for her article “‘The Tale of Aldarion and Erendis’: Not Just a Medieval Love Story” (Journal of Tolkien Research vol. 18 no. 1).
Works in the Collaboratory:
- Are You Tolkien to Me? lecture series
- Eowyn and Dernhelm presentation paper in the Library
- Tolkien and Alchemy lecture series