Signum University is an online university based in Nashua that emphasizes the study of fantasy and science fiction such as “Lord of the Rings” and various Medieval works, as well as some old European languages and philology, the study of how language develops. The legislature and Gov. Sununu this year gave it authority to grant accredited degrees, which will allow it to seek accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. That makes its courses far more valuable since they can be used for academic credit at other schools and, more importantly, let students apply for federal student loans.

I first wrote about the school in 2019 (article here). It was founded by Corey Olsen, a former tenured English professor at Washington College, a small liberal-arts school in Delaware, who built up a following by podcasting about J.R.R. Tolkien of “Lord of the Rings” fame, which he thinks may be the greatest literary work of the 20th century despite the academic world’s snooty opinion of fantasy.

The school’s curriculum is deliberately deep but not broad, covering “imaginative literature” (the logo for which is above), some traditional literature such as Shakespeare and “Beowulf”, and languages like Old Norse.