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Nobody is embarassed to bring in Lewis into a serious discussion, whether during class, or during a lecture, but the attitude is markedly different when Tolkien is mentioned. This sort of attitude is present at Duke to a lesser degree, but much pronounced in, say, Princeton (at least judging from what the people I have corresponded with have told me). And Lewis does get more respect, I have suspected this myself based on conversations with my professors, and the good lady seemed to confirm it for me.
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I can give testament that this attitude exists at Columbia. Lewis was brought into discussions in my LitHum class last year several times, but Tolkien was talked about in much the same way as, say, Harry Potter - my professor (whom I otherwise liked very much) seemed to consider both of them mere guilty pleasures rather than serious literature.
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Perhaps I should lay some money aside?
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Definitely. Shippey's book is excellent. I found his discussion of the ambiguous nature of evil in LotR particularly insightful. My one complaint is that he give the Silmarillion a somewhat more cursory treatment. In my opinion the Silmarillion is probably even more deserving of scholarly attention than LotR; but it is certainly never treated in such a way.