**The Lord of the Rings Sparks Campus Culture War Over Racial Bias Claims**
*Published Dec. 30, 2025, 6:45 p.m. ET*
J.R.R. Tolkien’s *The Lord of the Rings* has unexpectedly become the focal point of a heated campus culture debate after a university course branded the beloved fantasy epic as racially offensive. The controversial module, offered at the University of Nottingham in Britain, claims Tolkien’s depiction of good and evil reflects racial bias, igniting fury among students and fans who argue that the classic literary work is being unfairly recast as hostile to Africans.
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### Decolonising Tolkien: A History Module’s Controversial Claims
The course, titled *Decolonising Tolkien et al*, is led by historian and writer Dr. Onyeka Nubia. It explores how classic British literature—including Tolkien’s works—can embody what academics term “ethnic chauvinism” rooted in Western traditions.
Course materials argue that Tolkien demonizes “people of color” in *The Lord of the Rings*. Characters with darker skin, such as orcs and other antagonistic races, are portrayed morally corrupt, while lighter-skinned peoples are celebrated as virtuous. Dr. Nubia’s analysis highlights eastern peoples of Middle-earth—namely the Easterlings, Southrons, and the men of Harad—alongside the dark-skinned orcs serving the villainous Sauron, as groups depicted inherently evil.
The text further asserts that Tolkien’s fictional races participate in a broader legacy of “anti-African antipathy,” where Africans are framed as “the natural enemy of the white man.”
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### Re-examining British Myth Through a Decolonial Lens
The module situates its critique within the wider academic movement to “decolonize” Western literary canons by re-examining them through non-Western or non-white perspectives. Students on the course are also taught to “repopulate” British myth and legend, challenging the assumption that medieval England was ethnically uniform.
Dr. Nubia, a frequent BBC contributor, emphasizes that Africans lived in medieval England but were largely erased from its literature. He traces the persistence of “ethnic chauvinism” from John Milton’s *Paradise Lost* through to Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
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### Extending the Critique: C.S. Lewis and Shakespeare
The course doesn’t stop at Tolkien. It also critiques Lewis’ *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe*, citing the depiction of the Calormen as an example of orientalist stereotyping. The Calormen are described with “long beards” and “orange-colored turbans” and labeled “cruel,” imagery critics say echoes colonial caricatures.
William Shakespeare has also been drawn into the debate. Dr. Nubia claims Shakespeare’s plays helped promote a “fictional, mono-ethnic English past” by omitting references to Africans living in England, thus crafting an “illusion” of racial homogeneity. Similar discussions took place during the 2021 Anti-Racist Shakespeare program at London’s Globe Theatre, where scholars analyzed Shakespeare’s sonnets. Contributor Professor Vanessa Corredera highlighted the repeated use of dark and light imagery, pointing to racializing elements embodied by the contrast between the “Fair Youth” and the “Dark Lady” in the sonnets.
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### Backlash and Controversy
The Nottingham module has triggered a sharp backlash. One academic source dismissed the approach, calling it “ridiculous” for recasting Tolkien as anti-African, and claiming it ignores both authorial intent and genre conventions.
Students familiar with the course expressed frustration, with one saying, “Fans of *The Lord of the Rings* are up in arms because this feels like ideology being imposed on literature people love.” Another insider added that students felt pressured to accept the political framing to pass assessments, describing it as “an overreach that turns fantasy into a political litmus test.”
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As debates around race, literature, and history continue to evolve, *The Lord of the Rings* controversy at Nottingham reveals the challenges—and tensions—inherent in reinterpreting beloved cultural touchstones through modern academic frameworks.
https://radaronline.com/p/lord-of-the-rings-students-up-in-arms-over-anti-african-claims/
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