H.G.D. (Hamish) Williams, PhD

2024–2025                 Lecturer, The Department of Classical Studies, RUG

2020–2024,                Lecturer, The Department of ELC, RUG                

2021–2022                 Junior Fellow, The Polish Institute for Advanced Studies

2019–2021                 Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow, FSU Jena

2018–2019                 Lecturer, International Studies, Leiden University 

2013–2017                 Doctoral Candidate, University of Cape Town

PUBLICATIONS

Monograph

2023. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and the Classics. London: Bloomsbury.

Reviews: Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2024.01.42; H-Soz-Kult (Nov 20, 2023); Journal of Inklings Studies 14.1: 115–119; Journal of Tolkien Research 17.2: 10.1–4; Law & Liberty (Dec 29, 2023); Mallorn 64; Thersites 18.1: 146-150.

 

Edited Volumes

2022. The Ancient Sea: The Utopian and Catastrophic in Classical Narratives and their Reception, co-edited with Ross Clare. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

2021. Tolkien and the Classical World. Zurich, Jena: Walking Tree Publishers.

Reviews: Anabases 36: 344–346; Cadmo 31: 233–235; Journal of Tolkien Research 11.2: 4.1–5; Lembas 196: 7–9; Mallorn 47: 46–47; Minerva 36: 287–291; Mythlore 40.2: 276–281; Rosetta 27: 123–131; SFRA 53.2: 56–58; Thersites 15: 314–320; Tolkien Studies 19: 205–211; VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center 38.2: e141–e143; Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung 10.1: 1–5

Impact: Nominated for Best Book of the Year (2022) by The Tolkien Society.

Journal Articles

2024. “The Collapse of Minoan Crete in Mary Renault’s The King Must Die: Creative Sensemaking in Understanding History.” The Journal of Historical Fictions, in print.

2022. “‘One Must Tread the Path That Need Chooses’: The Choice of Need in Tolkien’s Moria Sequence.” Hither Shore: Interdisciplinary Journal on Modern Fantasy Literature 17: 247–262.

2020. “Tolkien’s Thalassocracy and Ancient Greek Seafaring People: Minoans, Phaeacians, Atlantans, and Númenóreans.” Tolkien Studies 17: 137–162.

2020. “Westwards, Utopia; Eastwards, Decline: The Reception of Classical Occidentalism and Orientalism in Tolkien’s Atlantic Paradise.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 31, no. 3: 404–423.

2019. “Acts of Eating in the Apologue: Destruction and Delay.” Hermes 147, no. 1: 3–20.

2019. “‘Hercules the Grocer?’: Low-Key Humor in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix.” Humor 32, no. 4: 565–583.

2018. “Mountains in the Apologue: Figures of Isolation in Society, Space, and Time.” Scripta Classica Israelica 37: 69–91.

2018. “Polymetic Heroism in the Wanderings of Odysseus, Odyssey 9–12 (the Apologue).” Akroterion 63: 1–20. https://akroterion.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/981.

2014. “Role-Playing in Horace’s Ars Poetica: Some Observations into Empathetic Discourse in the Language of the Horatian Teacher Persona.” Latomus 73, no. 4: 1060–1063.

2013. “Shattering Tradition: A Rejection of Analysis by Genre in Horace’s Ars Poetica.” Akroterion 58: 61–77. https://akroterion.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/147.

Book Chapters

2024. “Dionysiac, Apolline, Orphic, or…? Nietzschean Conflicts in Representing the Natural World in Christian Fantasy.” In The Songs of the Spheres: Lewis, Tolkien and the Overlapping Realms of their Imaginations, edited by Łukasz Neubauer and Guglielmo Spirito, 221–251. Zurich, Jena: Walking Tree Publishers.

2023. “Hybrid Pastoralism in The Lord of the Rings: The Virtues, Fragility, and Transformation of an Arcadian Shire.” In Tolkien and the Relation between Sub-creation and Reality, Inklings Studies Supplements no. 3, edited by Giuseppe Pezzini and E. O’Brien, 5–30. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

2023. “Labyrinths, Minotaurs, Bulls, Axes, Goddesses – Minoan Horror in Modern Fiction: Agatha Christie, Lawrence Durrell, John Farris, and Stephen King.” In Antikenrezeption im Horror, edited by Michael Kleu, 140–196. Essen: Oldib-Verlag.

2022. “Classical Literature.” In A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien, second edition, edited by Stuart D. Lee, 203–213. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

2022. “The Five Ages of Tolkien’s Greek Thalassocracy: A Comparative Study of Númenórean Narrative History.” In Lembas Extra 2022: Númenor, edited by Renée Vink and Jan van Breda, 61–86. Beverwijk: Tolkien Genootschap Unquendor.

2022. “Introduction.” Co-written with Ross Clare. In The Ancient Sea: The Utopian and Catastrophic in Classical Narratives and their Reception, edited by Hamish Williams and Ross Clare, 1–18. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

2022. “Minoan Utopias in British Fiction, after the Thalassocracy: Lawrence Durrell’s The Dark Labyrinth and Robert Graves’ Seven Days in New Crete.” In The Ancient Sea: The Utopian and Catastrophic in Classical Narratives and their Reception, edited by Hamish Williams and Ross Clare, 247–268. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

2021. “Classical Tradition, Modern Fantasy, and the Generic Contracts of Readers.” In Tolkien and the Classical World, edited by Hamish Williams, xi–xxvi. Zurich, Jena: Walking Tree Publishers.

2021. “Tolkien the Classicist: Scholar and Thinker.” In Tolkien and the Classical World, edited by Hamish Williams, 3–36. Zurich, Jena: Walking Tree Publishers.

2019. “Mountain People in Middle-Earth: Ecology and the Primitive.” In Sub-Creating Arda: World-Building in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Work, its Precursors, and its Legacies, edited by Thomas Honegger and Dimitra Fimi, 285–311. Zurich, Jena: Walking Tree Publishers.

2019. “Tolkien’s Trolls: Intertextuality in ‘Roast Mutton’ and Monstrous Incarnations after The Hobbit.” In Lembas Extra 2019: The World Tolkien Built, edited by Renée Vink, 111–127. Beverwijk: Tolkien Genootschap Unquendor.

2017. “‘Home is Behind, the World Ahead’: Reading Tolkien’s The Hobbit as a Story of Xenia or Homeric Hospitality.” In Rewriting the Ancient World: Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians in Modern Popular Fiction, edited by Lisa Maurice, 174–197. Leiden: Brill.

2016. “Between Exile and Hospitality: The Figure of the Xenos in Tolkien’s Faërie.” In Lembas Extra 2016: Tolkien Among Scholars, edited by Renée Vink et al., 177–190. Beverwijk: Tolkien Genootschap Unquendor.

2014. “Rediscovering the Creative Bard (‘Aoidos’): Some Observations into the Artistic Impact of Images, Eikones, upon the Narrative of Homer’s Odyssey IX–XII.” In Song and Emergent Poetics / Laulu ja runo / Песня и видоизменяющаяся поэтика, edited by Pekka Huttu-Hitunen, 257–267. Kuhmo: Juminkeko.

Dissertations

2017. “The Typical and Connotative Character of Xeinoi Situations across the Apologue: Three Studies in Repetition.” PhD diss., University of Cape Town. https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/24448/thesis_hum_2017_williams_hamish.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

2011. “To What Extent Does Horace Present a Coherent Praeceptor Persona in the Ars Poetica?” MA diss., University of Cape Town.

Book Reviews

2023. “Middle-earth, or There and Back Again, edited by Łukasz Neubauer.” Mythprint 60, no. 4: 6-8.

2023. “J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Númenor, Brian Sibley (ed.).” Journal of Inklings Studies 13, no. 1: 135–138.

2022. “John D. Rateliff (ed.), A Wilderness of Dragons: Essays in Honor of Verlyn Flieger.” Journal of Inklings Studies 12, no. 1: 154–157.

2022. “Mark Doyle: Utopian and Dystopian Themes in Tolkien’s Legendarium.” Hither Shore 19: 140–144.

2021. “Boekrecensie: Gleanings from Tolkien’s Garden: Selected Essays [Renée Vink].” Lembas 193: 15–19.

Works Republished in Translation

2025. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and the Classics. Being translated into Turkish. Istanbul: Pinhan Yayıncılık.

2021. “‘Το σπίτι μας πίσω, ο κόσμος μπροστά": Διαβάζοντας το Χόμπιτ του Τόλκιν σαν μια ιστορία ξενίας ή ομηρικής φιλοξενίας’ [“‘Home is Behind, the World Ahead’: Reading Tolkien’s The Hobbit as a Story of Xenia or Homeric Hospitality”].” Translated into modern Greek. In Επιδρασεις Της Αρχαιας Ελληνικης Γραμματειας Στο Εργο Του Τζ. Ρ. Ρ. Τολκιν, edited by Dimitra Fimi and Dimitris Kolovos, 25–61. Athens: Kedros.

Essays and Blogs

2023. “Minoan Utopia or Minoan Catastrophe? Archaeological and Cultural Perspectives.” Co-written with Guy D. Middleton. Liverpool University Press Blog, April 12, 2023. https://liverpooluniversitypress.blog/2023/04/12/minoan-utopia-or-minoan-catastrophe-archaeological-and-cultural-perspectives/.

2019. “Tolkien and the Classics.” Classical Reception Studies Network, January 21, 2019. https://classicalreception.org/tolkien-and-the-classics/.

2019. “The Hospitality Quest: The Homeric Odyssey and Tolkien’s The Hobbit.” Fantastische Antike – Antikenrezeption in Science Fiction, Horror und Fantasy, January 23, 2019. http://fantastischeantike.de/the-hospitality-quest-the-homeric-odyssey-and-tolkiens-the-hobbit-gastbeitrag-hamish-williams/.

2019. “Classics in Tolkien and Lewis.” Lembas 187: 235–236.

2018. “Caradhras: Savage Nature Warrior, Servant of Sauron, or Character Projection? A Spatial Study of a Mountain in The Fellowship of the Ring.” Lembas 183: 181–188.

Creative Writing: Novels

2021. The Southern Tide: Tales from Basthinia, Book 1. Beverwijk, the Netherlands: Stichting De Wereld Leest (previously: Ranger). http://ahvobraiths.nl/hamish-williams/.

2024. Under the Green Cloud: Tales from Basthinia, Book 2. Beverwijk, the Netherlands: Stichting De Wereld Leest, in preparation/commissioned.