Jason Fisher is a Tolkien scholar and winner of a Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in 2014 for his book Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays.[1] He served as the editor of the Mythopoeic Society's monthly Mythprint from 2010 to 2013. He is the author of many book chapters, academic articles, and encyclopedia entries on J. R. R. Tolkien.[2]
Jason Aldrich Fisher was born in 1970. He lives in Dallas, Texas. He is a software developer.[3] He has worked since 2002 as an independent scholar specialising in the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, his literary circle the Inklings, and fantasy more widely.[2][4]
Fisher has contributed to the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia,[2][5] to the Tolkien Studies journal,[6] to the Literary Encyclopedia,[7] and to the Inklings journal Mythlore,[8] among other journals and websites,[3] as well as chapters of Tolkien criticism.[2][9] He has been interviewed on PBS about Tolkien's 1937 book The Hobbit.[10]
Reviewing Tolkien and the Study of His Sources for Mythlore, Mike Foster writes that Fisher, and Tom Shippey who wrote the book's introduction, are right in pursuing Tolkien's sources, despite the author's objections; the book usefully clarifies Tolkien's approach for readers not familiar with early 20th century adventure stories and medieval stories of the saints. In Foster's view, while scholars have long ago picked the "low-hanging fruit", the book "proves that ... plenty of fruit still remains for the picking".[11] Emily Auger, reviewing the same work in Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, writes that "Fisher ... not only explains what source studies are, he explains how good source studies should be done".[12]