Programs have now been announced for two events to take place next month in Leeds, making the first week of July a great time to listen to presentations on Tolkien, either in person if you’re able to make it to Leeds in the UK or online for everyone else.

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The Tolkien Society always sponsors its free Tolkien Seminar every year just before the International Medieval Congress begins. This year’s Seminar theme is “Númenor, the Mighty and Frail,” and it will take place on July 2nd at The Hilton, Leeds.

The Seminar is free for both online and in-person attendance. Register here. The full day of presentations will feature 13 speakers. For presentation times and for more information, check out the Tolkien Society Seminar 2023 page.

• Putri Prihatini, Sea Goddess Worship and the Power of the King: Parallel between Aldarion, Uinen, Mataram Sultanate, and Javanese “Queen of the Southern Sea”
• Irina Metzler, Dealing with the Dead: Nuances of ancient Egypt and medieval theology in Númenor
• Advait Praturi, Darkness Alone is Worshipful: Discovering A Númenórean Theological Anthropology of Worship
• Tom Emanuel, ‘By the Waters of Anduin We Lay Down and Wept’: Exilic Theology in the Akallabêth
• Sara Brown, “Foretasting Death in Life”: Desire, the Fall, and Attempting to Return the ‘Gift’ of Ilúvatar
• Journeé Cotton, ‘All roads are now bent’: Ethical readings of the corporeality of Númenor
• Alpaslan Tandırcı, Ecology of Imperialism: Environmental History for Númenor
• Erik Jampa Andersson, The Akallabêth and the Anthropocene: Myth, Ecology, and the Changing of the Earth
• Kristine Larsen, Monstrous (Im)mortality: Transhumanism and Ecocriticism in ‘Akallabêth’
• S.R. Westvik, “I often dream of it”: Trauma and memory in the legacy of the Downfall of Númenor
• Chris Vaccaro, ‘And Númenor went down into the Sea’: the pleasure of self-dissolution and the masochistic jouissance of Westernesse
• Mercury Natis, Seducer-Destroyer: Salomé, Sauron, and the Seduction of the King
• Clare Moore, Elmar, the Experience of Captured Women, and Empires in Decline

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The International Medieval Congress follows immediately after the Tolkien Seminar from July 3-6 at the University of Leeds. This conference draws thousands of attendees, both in person and online, but it does cost to register (late registrations available until June 14). Among the papers being offered during the week are a series of presentations on Tolkien, organized by Dr. Andrew Higgins. More information on dates and times is available on Dr. Higgins’s blog here and also in the IMC program. Below is a list of presenters and their topics to demonstrate the range of the discussions scheduled to take place.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Questions of Adaptation and Authenticity: A Round Table Discussion, with Brian Egede-Pedersen, Mercury Natis, and Kate Natishan.
• Tolkien’s Work and Academic Networks at the University of Leeds
  • Andoni Cossio, The Missing Letters that J.R.R. Tolkien Received from Derek J. Wilson and R.M. Wilson – New Research and Addendum to Further Notes on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Photostats of The Equatorie of the Planets (MS Peterhouse 25)
  • Andrew Higgins, ‘An industrious little devil’: Tolkien’s Development of the Elvish Languages at Leeds, 1920-1925 
  • Kristine Larsen, Leeds and the Medieval Foundation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s ‘Father Christmas’ Letters 
• New Works, Networks, and Methods in Tolkien and Middle-earth Research
  • Mitchell Kooh, Tolkien Studies and the ‘Theological Turn’ 
  • Yvette Kisor, Queer Time and Space in Tolkien’s Middle-earth 
  • Cami Agan, Reading Tolkien’s First Age through the Lens of Michel de Certeau 
  • Christopher Vaccaro, Queer Phenomenology, Lesbian Ents, and the Future of Queer Tolkien Studies 
• J. R. R. Tolkien: Medieval Roots and Modern Branches
  • Christian Trenk, Riddles in the Mark: The Usage of ‘Riddle’ in Book III of The Lord of the Rings as Micro Level Interlacing 
  • Scott Hodgman, Dark are the Pathless Ways 
  • Eva Lippold, This is a serious journey, not a hobbit walking-party’: Travel and the Quest Motif in Tolkien’s Work 
  • Gaëlle Abaléa, ‘We swears on the precious’: Oath-Making and Oath-Keeping in Tolkien – Literary Devices or Spiritual Statements? 
• Tolkien’s Medieval Entanglements
  • Amy Amendt-Raduege, The Interlaced Entanglement of ‘The King’s Touch’ 
  • Andrzej Wicher, The Theme of Decay and Fall in Tolkien’s Works and its Medieval Entanglements 
  • Kirsten Ogilby, Sam the Scop: The Entanglements of Poetry in Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings 
• Disentangling the Second Age of Tolkien’s Middle-earth
  • Sara Brown, The Tale of Aldarion and Erendis: Not Just a Medieval Love Story 
  • S.R. Westvik, Out of the Great Sea: Of Elendil and Legends Old and New 
  • James Tauber, Untangling the Second Age Tale of Years 
  • Clara Colin-Saïdani, The Roads to Númenor: Navigating Tolkien’s Mythopoeic Network 

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Such a range of approaches to Tolkien’s work! It’s going to be a very full week in July.