Category Archives: Calls for Papers

Tolkien conference season 2016

31 Sunday Jan 2016

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Here are some Tolkien conferences coming up in the spring and summer — prime conference season! I can’t claim to list every event that’s going on, so if you’d like to add something to the list, please let me know in the comments section. If you want to know about Tolkien-related events around the world, not necessarily just conferences, I’d suggest the public Facebook group International Tolkien Fellowship List of Events. Also, Troels Forchammer’s monthly Tolkien Transactions usually catches more items than I’m aware of. But here are the conferences that I do know about:

Popular Culture Association (PCA)

Popular Culture Association logo

Seattle, Washington
March 22 -25, 2016

The preliminary program, organized by Robin Reid, can be viewed here. The speakers include Martin Barker presenting on the World Hobbit Project; an academic editors’ roundtable discussion with Leslie Donovan, Janet Croft, Brad Eden, Janice Bogstad, and Martin Barker; and numerous other papers on adaptation, translation, reception, and more. The nice thing about the online PCA program is that you can dig down into each session and read the abstracts of all the papers. There are eight sessions in the Tolkien Studies area, another successful year for this new subject area at the PCA national conference.

 

13th Annual Tolkien in Vermont conference

Tolkien in Vermont conference

Burlington, Vermont
April 8 – 9, 2016

This year’s theme is “Tolkien and Popular Culture,” with keynote speaker Robin Reid. A program will be available on the Tolkien in Vermont website. This small conference, organized by Chris Vaccaro, is always a friendly mix of faculty, students, and independent scholars.

 

Tolkien’s Philosophy of Language

13th Seminar of the Deutsche Tolkien Gesellschaft (DTF)
The Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Walking Tree Publishers
May 6 – 8, 2016

A link to more conference information can be found here.

 

Tolkien at Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo campus swan pond

International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo Michigan
May 12 – 15, 2016

I’ve already posted a schedule of sessions on Tolkien and medievalism as they appeared in the preliminary program. There are seven sessions dealing with Tolkien, mostly organized by Brad Eden and a few others. This year, one of the plenary speakers will be Jane Chance talking about “How we read J.R.R. Tolkien reading Grendel’s mother.” The ICMS is a huge conference, usually drawing around 3,000 participants in sessions on all aspects of the Middle Ages and medievalism.

 

Tolkien Among Scholars: 7th Unquendor Lustrum Conference 2016

Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society and the Dutch Tolkien Society Unquendor.
June 18, 2016

The keynote speakers for this international conference will be Thomas M. Honegger and Paul Smith. The program will be posted on the conference website.

 

Tolkien Society Seminar 2016

Tolkien Society

Leeds, UK
July 3, 2016

The theme of this year’s seminar is “Life, Death, and Immortality,” and if you’re interested in giving a paper, there’s still time: March 25 is the deadline for submissions. You can find the Call for Papers and more information here. The Seminar takes place the day before the International Medieval Congress begins at Leeds University, where you’ll find more Tolkien sessions (see below).

 

International Medieval Congress

medieval

Leeds University
July 4 – 7, 2016

Dimitra Fimi has organized two sessions on Tolkien for this conference. Like Kalamazoo, the Leeds conference draws thousands of medievalists every year. The program will be posted on the conference website.

 

New York Tolkien Conference

cropped-logo-art.jpg

Baruch College, New York City
July 16, 2016

This conference, organized by Jessica Burke and Anthony Burdge, is back again after last year’s successful inaugural event. The special theme for this year’s conference is “The Inklings and Science,” with guests of honour Kristine Larsen and Jared Lobdell. The call for papers has not yet been posted, but keep checking the conference site for information as it becomes available.

 

Mythcon 47

Mythopoeic Society

Mythopoeic Society
San Antonio, Texas
August 5 – 8, 2016

The special theme for this year’s conference is “Faces of Mythology: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern.” The Scholar Guest of Honour is Andrew Lazo and the Author Guest of Honour, Midori Snyder. You can find a call for papers here; the deadline is May 1st to send proposals to Jason Fisher, the papers co-ordinator for this conference.

 

That’s my list for now. Clearly, the field of Tolkien Studies is thriving. I wish I had unlimited funds to travel to every one of these meetings!

 

 

CFP: Tolkien in Vermont 2016

19 Monday Oct 2015

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Tolkien in Vermont conference

Conference organizer Chris Vaccaro has sent out the call for papers for the 13th Annual Tolkien in Vermont conference. This is a small, friendly event with a featured speaker and papers by professors, independent scholars, and students. This year’s theme is Tolkien and popular culture, with keynote speaker Dr. Robin Reid.

Tolkien and Popular Culture
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont
April 8-9, 2016

Abstracts should be sent by January 15th to Chris Vaccaro at  cvaccaro@uvm.edu.

To look at previous years’ programs, you can go to the conference website.

Call for papers: Tolkien Studies at PCA/ACA, March 2016

30 Tuesday Jun 2015

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After Robin Reid organized the first successful round of Tolkien Studies sessions two years ago at the Popular Culture Association conference in Chicago, Tolkien Studies has become a regular part of the PCA/ACA annual conference.  In 2016, the conference will be held in Seattle, from March 21-25. Paper proposals can be submitted from July 1st to October 1st.

More information about the conference and how to submit proposals can be found on the PCA/ACA Tolkien Studies page. You can also keep up with news of the conference and other items of interest by joining the public Tolkien Studies at the Popular Culture/American Culture Association Facebook group. If you join the group, you can download Robin Reid’s notes on all of the 2015 sessions. For another view of the 2015 meeting, see David Bratman’s report on the Tolkien Society blog. Going even further back, you can find my summaries of two of the roundtable discussions from the 2014 conference here and here.

Tolkien conference season 2015

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

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It’s time to start organizing my travel to various conferences this spring and summer. I wish I could attend all of these meetings, but I’ll be fortunate enough to go to a couple of them at least. My list focuses on North American conferences because I know those best, but please let me know in the comments if there are others. I hope my list will demonstrate the healthy state of academic Tolkien Studies and maybe entice you to go to one of these events — if you’re not already booking your tickets. And while there will be plenty of professional scholars at these conferences,  most of these events draw a lively mix of academics, independent scholars, writers, artists, fans of all kinds.

The first meeting will be held in a few weeks – not exactly springtime where I live, but still it does kick off the conference season:

There and Back Again: Tolkien in 2015 OSU Tolkien 2015: There and Back Again Conference, Feb 20-21, 2015
The Ohio State University.
February 20-21, 2015

This is the second annual Popular Culture and the Deep Past event sponsored by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Ohio State U.  According to the event website: “this will be a full-fledged conference, itself nested in a broader ‘carnival’ of popular and traditional cultural events and activities.”  Sounds like there will be something for everyone.

Popular Culture/American Culture Association National Conference
Popular Culture Association logo
New Orleans Marriott
April 1-4, 2015

This is a massive conference that draws scholars from a huge variety of fields. The newly established Tolkien Studies area, organized by Robin Reid, is sponsoring eight sessions plus a business meeting for a second year in a row.  The final program should be posted soon on the website.

12th annual Tolkien in Vermont conference
Tolkien in Vermont conference
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT
April 10-11, 2015

This year’s theme is medieval narrative verse, with Michael Drout as the keynote speaker. According to the conference organizer, Chris Vaccaro, a program will be posted soon on the website. This is usually a small and friendly conference attended by faculty, students, and the general public, with an open mic night on Friday followed by a day of presentations on Saturday.

International Congress on Medieval Studies 
Kalamazoo campus swan pond
University of Western Michigan
Kalamazoo, MI
May  14-17, 2015

This annual conference draws thousands of medievalists every year, but it also includes anyone interested in the scholarly study of Tolkien (not always the same as a medievalist).  The Tolkien at Kalamazoo group sponsors as many sessions as are allowed by the Congress organizers, and other sponsoring groups have sessions on Tolkien or on medievalisms as well.  You can search through the conference program  for what interests you.

New York City Tolkien Conference
New York City Tolkien ConferenceBaruch College
New York
June 13, 2015

The call for papers is on the site, with a deadline for proposals of April 7, 2015.  The keynote speaker will be Janet Brennan Croft and musical guest of honour, John DiBartolo.

Mythopoeic Society Conference / Mythcon 46
Mythopoeic Society
Hotel Elegante
Colorado Springs, Colorado
July 31-August 3, 2015

The special theme is the Arthurian Mythos.  I expect that more details about the program will appear on the website soon. This conference is usually a nice combination of serious academic papers and fun social events, readings, and more.

International Medieval Congress 
IMC 2015 poster
University of Leeds
July 6-9, 2015

This is the largest conference on medieval studies in Europe. A search through the program found three sessions on Tolkien.

Update February 12: Dr. Dimitra Fimi, who has organized some of these sessions, has more details about sessions on Tolkien, medievalism, fantasy, Arthurian tradition and more on her blog.

And looking ahead towards the end of the summer,  there is always
The Tolkien Society’s Oxonmoot
Tolkien Society
September 10-13, 2015.
St. Anthony’s  College, Oxford

And here are a couple of other conferences that focus on medievalism and that could very well end up sponsoring sessions on Tolkien:

The Middle Ages in the Modern World (MAMO)
June 29 – July 2, 2015
University of Lincoln, Lincoln UK

Update Feb. 12:  The provisional programme is now available. One session on Tolkien and lots of other good panels on various medievalism topics.

International Conference on Medievalism
This conference usually takes place in the fall.  I don’t see any information on the website yet about the next meeting.

I realize on looking over this list that it is heavily skewed towards Tolkien as a medievalist. If there are any other conferences you feel people should know about, please feel free to add them in the comments. It would also be interesting to know about other Tolkien conferences beyond North America and the UK.

Update Feb. 12:  Thanks to Marcel Aubron Bülles  here is another conference program:

German Tolkien Society
University of Aachen
May 1-3, 2015

Tolkien in Vermont 2015

23 Friday Jan 2015

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Tolkien in Vermont conferenceTolkien in Vermont is a conference that is now heading into its twelfth year. A call for papers has been posted recently by the organizer, Chris Vaccaro, who promises that details about the conference will appear soon on the Tolkien in Vermont website. The CFP is copied below, or you can find it here.

I’ve always found this conference to be a small and friendly gathering where you can meet and mingle with all of the participants — students, fans, independent scholars, faculty alike. This year’s keynote speaker, in keeping with the conference theme of medieval verse narratives, is Michael Drout.

**********

Call for papers:

April 10-11
Tolkien in Vermont conference
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT

The theme for this year is Medieval Verse Narratives. Papers on every subject will be considered; however, the following subjects will be prioritized: Beowulf, The Fall of Arthur, Sigurd and Gudrun, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Pearl, and Sir Orfeo.

Please submit an abstract or (preferably) a complete paper by Sunday, February 1st. Decisions will follow swiftly thereafter. Papers should be ten pages in length.

We are very excited to announce that Michael Drout (Professor, Wheaton College) will be this year’s keynote speaker!

contact email:  cvaccaro@uvm.edu

Tolkien Studies at Popular Culture Association 2015 meeting

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

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After a successful trial run last April at the Popular Culture / American Culture Association conference, a regular Tolkien Studies stream has been approved for the annual conference. The organizer of the Tolkien Studies area, Robin Reid, has issued a general call for papers for the 2015 conference to be held in New Orleans, April 1-4, 2015:

“We welcome proposals on any area of Tolkien Studies (the Legendarium, adaptations, reader reception and fan studies, media and marketing) from any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective. Sessions are scheduled in 1½ hour slots, typically with four papers or speakers per standard session.”

Proposals have to be submitted through the conference website by November 1st at http://ncp.pcaaca.org.

The full call for papers and contact details can be found here: PCA 2015 CFP [pdf]

To follow the progress of the conference planning, you can always join the Tolkien Studies at PCA Facebook group.

 

 

Talking about medievalisms

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

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While my focus here is often on Tolkien, I’ve collected some calls for papers on medievalism generally (although I do include below one conference on Tolkien specifically). The proliferation of conferences and sessions on medievalism – that is, “the reception of the Middle Ages in postmedieval times” — is a healthy indicator of the academic acceptance of medievalism studies, something that earlier scholars such as Leslie Workman, founder of Studies in Medievalism and the International Conference on Medievalism had to fight for at times in the 1970s and 80s. Today medievalism continues to be an evolving multidisciplinary study open to many different approaches. If you follow the links and read the calls for papers, you’ll get a good sense of how diverse and far-ranging topics in medievalism studies can be — and you’ll see that there’s plenty of talking about medievalisms these days.

The Middle Ages in the Modern World (MAMO). June 29-July 2, 2015 at the University of Lincoln, UK.  Individual paper proposals should be submitted by September 15, 2014 and panel proposals by August 31, 2014. This is the second conference in a planned series of biennial meetings. According to the MAMO Facebook page, plans are in the works to hold a 2017 conference in Manchester and a 2019 meeting in Rome. You can follow conference news on Twitter:  @TheMAMOConf.

Medievalisms on the Move. 29th International Conference on Medievalism. October 24-25, 2014 at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, US. The conference aims  “to investigate the manifold transformations that happen when recreations, reinventions, and redefinitions of the ‘medieval’ move from one cultural space and time to another.” The deadline for proposals has passed, but if you’re interested in attending, a program should be posted soon.

I listed the following two sessions in my previous post on K’zoo 2015 Tolkien and medievalism sessions, but the CFPs for both of these give further details if you follow the links:

Studies in Medievalism: Kalamazoo 2015 Call for Papers. May 14-17, 2015. International Conference on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, Michigan, US. Further details on the three sessions sponsored by the International Society for the Study of Medievalism:  Metaphysical Medievalisms, Political Medievalisms, and Critical Mediations.  Proposals should be sent before September 15, 2014.

MEMO: Medieval Electronic Multimedia Organization: Kalamazoo 2015 Call for Papers. May 14-17, 2015. International Conference on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, US. Further details on two sessions: Playing Medieval: A Festive Video Game Workshop and Poster Session and on a paper session, The Neomedieval Image. Proposals should be sent by September 15, 2014.

And finally, here is the most recent call for papers I’ve received for an event at The Ohio State University’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, focusing on Tolkien. Of course, almost any conference on Tolkien qualifies as a study in medievalism since a sense of medieval languages, genres, histories pervades his work. And any conference on medievalisms, such as the ones listed above, could potentially include work on Tolkien too.

There and Back Again: Tolkien in 2015 at The Ohio State University February 20-21, 2015.  Second annual conference on Popular Culture and the Deep Past, with a focus on Tolkien and especially The Hobbit for 2015. This will be an academic conference that is “nested in a broader ‘carnival’ of popular and traditional cultural events and activities.” Proposals for both academic and non-academic presentations are requested by October 1, 2014.

 

Tolkien and medievalism sessions, K’zoo 2015

29 Sunday Jun 2014

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The International Congress on Medieval Studies has released a preview of the sessions that have been approved for the 2015 conference in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You can find the full information for each call for papers on the Congress sessions page. While there are hundreds of sessions on medieval topics, I have listed the ones that deal with Tolkien specifically and with medievalisms more generally. The deadline for submissions is in September, but many sessions are filled well before that date, so if you’re interested in submitting a proposal, the sooner the better.

First, the sessions specifically dealing with Tolkien:

  • The Tolkien at Kalamazoo group, organized by Brad Eden, has had three sessions approved:
    1. Tolkien’s Beowulf
    2. Tolkien and Medieval Victorianism
    3. Tolkien as Linguist and Medievalist
  • Brad is also the organizer of a readers’ theater performance of Tolkien’s Beowulf and “Sellic Spell” and  the continuing series of “Maidens of Middle-earth: Turin’s Women.”
  • “Tolkien as Translator and Translated” is a special session organized by Judy Ann Ford.
  • Doug Anderson is the organizer of a roundtable discussion on “Christopher Tolkien as Medieval Scholar.”

Other sessions that deal with medievalisms:

  • The Tales after Tolkien Society is organizing two sessions:
    1.  From Frodo to Fidelma: Medievalisms in Popular Genres (A Roundtable)
    2.  Martin and More: Genre Medievalisms.
  • postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies is offering “Quantum Medievalisms” (A Roundtable).
  • Alexandra Garner is organizing a special session: “Modernizing the Medieval for a New Generation: Medievalism in Young Adult and Children’s Literature.”
  • C. S. Lewis Society, Purdue University and the Center for the Study of C. S. Lewis and Friends, Taylor University has two sessions:
    1. Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: Sources, Influences, Revisions, Scholarship
    2. Phantom Limb: The Presence of the Problem of Pain in the Works of C. S. Lewis
  • a special session / poetry reading, “Medieval Poetry / Modern Poets” organized by Gerard P. NeCastro.
  • And finally, although this special session has nothing to do with Tolkien, I wanted to mention the workshop that will be conducted by well-known Tolkienist and astronomy professor Kristine Larsen: “A hands-on introduction to astrolabes.”

CFP: Humour in and around Tolkien’s work

30 Thursday Jan 2014

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This call for papers just came in. The original deadlines have been extended. Proposals are now due on March 3 and, if accepted, final papers by June 30.

Call for Papers:
Humour in and around the works of Tolkien

Tolkien has until recently been seen primarily as a writer of epic fantasy, a genre usually not associated with humour. If humour had been the subject of academic inquiry at all, then the authors focused mostly on the shorter works (e.g. Schneidewind on Farmer Giles of Ham) or the treatment of humour was incidental or part of a larger argument (e.g. Tom Shippey’s discussion of orcish humour in LotR in his paper on the nature of evil). The proposed collection of essays therefore aims at a critical re-examination as well as an expanded view of the use of humour in and around Tolkien’s works. In order to study the diversity of these texts, we would encourage contributors to apply contemporary approaches towards humour and also take into account, where appropriate (e.g. humour in parodies), recent publications in adaptation studies.

We invite contributions including – but not limited to – the following topics:

•      What are the humorous elements and their function within the various textual genres (i.e. literary, poetic, academic, and epistolary texts)?

•      Tolkien’s understanding of humour and related phenomena such as irony or satire and their conceptual relevance for his works.

•      Concepts and relevance of humour in the context of a mythology written by a modern author.

•      Adaptation and transformation of Tolkien’s humour in Tolkienian fan-fiction.

•      Adaptation and transformation of humour in interpretations of Tolkien’s works in other media (comic/graphic novel, drawings/paintings, film etc.)

•      Strategies of humour in parodies of Tolkien’s work.

With this outline for possible fields of examination, we hope to encourage a diversity of topics and theoretical/methodological approaches, highlighting the complexity of Tolkien’s works and their poetics. Please pass on this call for papers to anyone who may be interested.

~ • ~

If you would like to contribute to this volume, to be published by Walking Tree Publishers in 2015, please submit an abstract (200-300 words) outlining your proposed article by 03 March, 2014. Upon acceptance, full essays are due by 30 June, 2014. All contributions should be submitted in English. Please send your abstracts, inquiries and suggestions by email to:

Dr. Thomas Honegger
Email: Tm.honegger@uni-jena.de

or

Dr. Maureen F. Mann
Email: babeltower@sympatico.ca

Please visit the Walking Tree website to learn more about the publishers:
http://www.walking-tree.org/

CFP: Tales After Tolkien: Medievalism and Genre in the Twenty-First Century

20 Wednesday Nov 2013

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The following call for papers came through the Studies in Medievalism email list. You can find some information about the Tales After Tolkien Society on their website, which outlines their formation at the 2013 International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo.

CFP:  Contributions are sought for an edited collection titled Tales After Tolkien: Medievalism and Genre in the Twenty-First Century. The collection explores the ways popular genres engage with the history and literature of the Middle Ages, and with the very idea of ‘the medieval.’ What are the intersections of medievalism and genre in modern popular culture?

The questions chapters might ask include, but are not limited to: how genre conventions shape the use of medieval material and vice versa? In what ways do contemporary social, cultural and political issues intersect with the medieval in popular genres? How do authors approach the Middle Ages and medieval material? What is the role of audience expectations and beliefs? Is historical authenticity important, to whom does it matter, and how is it defined?

Chapters may focus on any popular genre, but contributions exploring romance, horror, mystery, science fiction and historical, westerns, cross-genre works or comparing genres are especially welcome. They may focus on works in any medium, e.g. fiction, film, television, graphic novels, and games, or consider multi- or transmedia medievalisms. Chapters exploring fan communities, audiences, and adaptations are also welcome. They should focus on works first published in the twenty-first century, although series which began before that date could also be considered, as could comparisons of recent works with earlier publications.

Chapters will be 6,000 to 7,000 words, including all footnotes, references etc, with first drafts due 1st June 2014, and final versions on 1st October 2014. The volume will be offered to Cambria Press, which has expressed interest in seeing the manuscript proposal.

In the first instance, an abstract of approximately 300 words along with a brief CV should be sent to Helen.Young@sydney.edu.au by 8th January, 2014. Any queries may be directed to the same address.