Having missed the Mythopoeic Society’s conference that just wrapped up in California last week – one of these days I’ll get there! – and thinking about the Return of the Ring conference that will begin in Loughborough UK in a few days – where  I had been hoping to go but had to cancel in the end – I started thinking about other Tolkien-related conferences that I can and cannot attend in the coming year. Here is a list of upcoming Tolkien conferences – the ones I know of, at least.  This year marks the 75^th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit, and with Peter Jackson’s first installment of The Hobbit films coming out in December, there is particular interest in that text this year.

Do you know of any other conferences relating to Tolkien studies that I’ve missed? Please let me know!

Return of the Ring: Celebrating Tolkien in 2012
University of Loughborough, UK
August 16-20, 2012
http://www.returnofthering.org/

Tolkien: The Forest and the City
The School of English, Trinity College, Dublin
September 21-22, 2012
http://www.tcd.ie/English/news-events/Tolkien Conference.php
Keynote address by Tom Shippey. Invited lecturers: Michael D.C. Drout; Verlyn Flieger; Thomas Honegger; Alison Milbank. Roundtable: Henry Gee. Papers by Dimitra Fimi and others.

Oxonmoot
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
September 21-23, 2012
http://www.oxonmoot.org/

Hobbit Symposium
The Woode-walkers Medieval Studies Group, the English Dept., and Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri, US
December 1, 2012
Call for papers: September 22, 2012
Plenary address: Douglas A. Anderson
http://woodewalkers.wordpress.com/hobbit-symposium/

Celebrating The Hobbit: A Conference on the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien
Valparaiso University
Valparaiso, Indiana, US
March 1-3, 2013
Call for papers: September 1, 2012
Plenary speakers: Verlyn Flieger, Douglas A. Anderson, John D. Rateliff. Featuring a 25^th anniversary performance of Symphony #1: The Lord of the Rings, composed and conducted by Johan de Meij.
http://conference.valpo.edu/tolkien/

10^th Annual Tolkien at UVM Conference
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont, US
Keynote speaker: John D. Rateliff
The conference usually takes place in early April (2013).
The call for papers usually has a January deadline.
Contact: Chris Vacarro : cvaccaro [at] uvm [dot] edu

Leo Con 2013
Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Anime/Manga, Gaming Convention
Texas A&M Commerce
April 13, 2013
Planned events include Hobbit discussion panels.
http://leoconn.wordpress.com/sigil/books/

10th DTG Tolkien Seminar 2013
Adaptations of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
10^th DTG Tolkien Seminar
RWTH Aachen
April, 26-28, 2013
Call for papers: November 30, 2012
http://www.tolkiengesellschaft.de/8051/call-for-papers-tolkien-seminar-2013/

Tolkien at Kalamazoo
International Congress on Medieval Studies
University of Western Michigan
Kalamazoo, Michigan, US
May 9-12, 2013
Call for papers: September 15, 2012
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/

Follow the Congress links for contact information and instructions on how to submit proposals. Sessions that specifically mention Tolkien are the following:
Tolkien at Kalamazoo:I.In Honor of Verlyn Flieger: The State of Tolkien Scholarship (ARoundtable Discussion); II. Art and Music of TheHobbit; III. Tolkien as Medieval Scholar; IV. Women in Tolkien’s Professional Life; V. In Honor of Jane Chance: Tolkien and Alterity; VI. Tolkien Unbound (A Performance)

Society for the Study of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages (SSHMA)Queer Tolkien [cosponsored with Tolkien at Kalamazoo]

Tales after Tolkien: Medievalism and Twenty-First-Century Fantasy Literature

Mythcon 44
Green and Growing: The Land and Its Inhabitants in Fantasy
The Mythopoeic Society
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan, US
July 12-15, 2013
http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/44/

Omentielva Lempea: The Fifth International Conference on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Invented Languages
August 8-11, 2013
Helsinki, Finland
http://www.omentielva.com/next.htm

And looking even further ahead:

3^rd Conference on Middle-earth, Part 2
March 28-30, 2014
Westford, MA, US
Call for papers:  March 25, 2013 – December 31, 2013
http://www.3rdcome.org/index.html

I’m wondering if there will be any Tolkien sessions at the MLA 2013 convention or at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in 2013?  If you know of any Tolkien studies panels there or elsewhere, let us know!