Sounds like the title of the next book of TORN essays! I just got the
TORN book and have been reading some of the essays, very interesting work
guys! It shows how the idea of a "Tolkien scholar" is hard to pin
down. Their title, the "People's Guide," does stress that the study and
reflection on Tolkien that goes on is not necessarily limited to formal
study. Certainly some who share some of Tolkien's linguistic knowledge,
as Curious points out, can qualify, and there are some literary critics among
us, but most of the "scholars" here and in Tolkien fandom in general are people
who have read his works--some going all the way into the HoME series--and have
reread them many times along with reference books and sites like the
Encyclopedia of Arda. You can approach Tolkien from many different
perspectives, and I think there's many scholars who are not necessarily coming
at it through philology or formal literary interpretation. Though Tolkien
is gaining more ivory tower acceptability (I took a Tolkien course back in the
80s, but then it was somewhat poo-poo'ed by the other English Dept.
curmudgeons), his works and fantasy literature in general are still somewhat
"outside" the canonical literary mainstream, and thus have a mixture of experts
who often come from outside the kind of circles that usually become experts on
Beowulf or Chaurcer. Most here in the RR have day jobs that are as far
removed from fantasy literature as you can get!
So bottom line, I would think a Tolkien scholar is anyone who has a deep
appreciation of his works and has invested time and energy into understanding
and appreciating them from whatever perspective they come from (some going into
the Old English roots of the words, some looking at the Elven houses and
genealogy, some at the hobbit lore, etc.,
etc.).
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"All wizards should have a hobbit or two in their care..."
