And has he lined up a heck of a surprise for the lucky students who take this course. Geeze, I wish I lived near Cambridge, MA. Here is an excerpt from a message Dr. Zender sent me yesterday:

Starting January 27th, 2010, I will be offering ANTH E-164 "Tolkien as Translator: Language, Culture and Society in Middle-Earth" through Harvard's Extension School. On-campus lectures will be held on Wednesday evenings, 5:30-7:30pm EST, but the course will also be videotaped, and the lectures can be accessed by enrolled students from pretty much anywhere with a reasonably fast internet connection. An online forum will also allow students to regularly engage with the teaching staff and one another. As before, the focus is squarely on the role of Tolkien's invented languages in communicating the complex cultures of Middle-earth, but this time I've also managed to attract a couple of guest lecturers I'm sure you've heard about: Dick Plotz and Bob Foster. These grand gents will visit the class on March 31st and share some of their early work on Tolkien's languages, correspondence and meeting with Tolkien, etc. I think it should prove an interesting highlight.

Okay, so I am sure there are still a few people in the Tolkien fan community who remember Dick Plotz and (Robert) Bob Foster. But for those of you who are too young to recognize the names, Robert Foster wrote The Complete Guide To Middle-earth, which served as the definitive glossary for Tolkien's works for about a decades -- and it's still very useful today. Dick Plotz was the seminal Tolkien researcher and scholar in the 1960s and 1970s (and Foster credits him in numerous entries in the original Guide).

All I can say is: WOW.

Dr. Marc Zender is a Research Associate, Peabody Museum, Lecturer on Anthropology, Harvard University. His title is longer than my father's name (sorry, Dad -- no disrespect meant). You may have seen Dr. Zender on an episode of Lost Worlds titled "Indiana Jones and the Ultimate Quest". I watched the show last evening.

I wrote about Dr. Zender's first Tolkien class back in May.

Here are a couple of links to check out:

Tolkien as Translator: Language, Culture and Society in Middle-Earth

Syllabus (pdf)