Michael D.C. Drout is the Frances A. Shirley Professor of English and Director of the Center for the Study of the Medieval at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts, where since 1997 he has taught Old and Middle English, Science Fiction, and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. 

Drout is the author of The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation; How to Learn How to Think: What the Liberal Arts Are Good For, Anyway; How Tradition Works; Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Saxon Literature; and Drout’s Quick and Easy Old English and is co-author of Beowulf Unlocked: New Evidence from Lexomic Analysis. The editor of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf and the Critics and the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia and co-editor of Transitional States: Cultural Change, Tradition and Memory in Medieval England, Drout is one of the co-founders and co-editor of the journal Tolkien Studies. He has published over 100 books and articles on Tolkien, fantasy and science fiction, and medieval literature. 

Supported by three grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Drout co-developed “Lexomic” methods of computer-assisted statistical analysis that led to discoveries about Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Latin, and Modern English texts. The Lexomics software can be accessed at http://lexomics.wheatoncollege.edu. 

A consultant for The Lord of the Rings On-line MMPORG, Drout has appeared in two History Channel miniseries: Clash of the Gods and True Monsters; in National Geographic’s Beyond the Movie: The Return of the King; and in Icons Unearthed: The Lord of the Rings. 

He has also recorded 13 audio courses, one of which, A Way with Words Part IV: Understanding Poetry, was a finalist for the 2010 Audie Award for best original work. Among his more recent audio courses are How to Think: The Enduring Value of the Liberal Arts, The Norsemen: Understanding the Vikings and their Culture, and Singers and Tales: Oral Tradition and the Roots of Literature. His website is http://michaeldrout.com. 

Professor Drout lives in Dedham, Massachusetts, with his wife Raquel, their daughter Rhys, their son Mitchell †, and corgis Lancelot and Percival. 

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