Faye Ringel, Ph.D. is Professor of Humanities at the United States Coast Guard Academy, New London, CT. Her dissertation in Comparative Literature, Patterns of the Hero and the Quest (Brown University, 1979), was one of the first to analyze Tolkien in the light of Campbell's monomyth, placing Tolkien in the context of Medieval epic and romance. Her articles on medievalism, contemporary legends, the Gothic, ballads, science fiction, and fantasy have appeared in journals and edited collections. Her book, New England's Gothic Literature: History and Folklore of the Supernatural (1995) explores the persistence and transformation of European Gothic myths in New England. She is an invited speaker on the American Gothic at the 2004 conference of the European Association for American Studies in Prague. This summer, she will be a visiting scholar in the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute at Texas A&M University at Commerce on "Tolkien: From Beowulf to Postmodernism." She is also a performer and teacher of traditional music with a CD recording, Hot Chestnuts: Old Songs, Endearing Charms.

Hot Chestnusts: Old Songs, Endearing Charms

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