Tag Archives: Tolkien at UVM

April 2022 conference sessions on Tolkien

29 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by in Conferences, Tolkien

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

A couple of conferences are coming up in the next few weeks with lots of discussion about a wide range of topics in Tolkien studies. Check out what people will be talking about in the Tolkien@UVM conference and the PCA Tolkien Studies area — or register and listen to the full sessions!

The 18th Annual Tolkien at University of Vermont conference

April 2, 2022 [hybrid conference]

You can register and download a full program here.

Keynote: The theme of this conference is The Idea of History in Tolkien’s Middle-earth and features Dr. Kristine Larsen as the keynote speaker. She will be talking about “Arda Remade: History and Twentieth-Century Cosmology.”

Other sessions:

Session I Tolkien and Narrativity [In-person]
“Narrative Voice and Differing Concepts of Evil in the Published Silmarillion.” Chris Craun
“The Forbidden Pool as a Garden of Eden Story in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” Yvette Kisor

Session II Tolkien and the Literary Tradition [Virtual]
“The Good Pagan in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Trilogy.” Linsay Ragle Miller
“The Horrors of Intimate Evil in Tolkien’s Abandoned ’Novel’ The New Shadow.” Bo Kampmann Walther
“Tolkien, Cline, and the Quest for a Silmaril.” Tom Ue

Session III Theorizing Tolkien [Virtual]
“Lived Legendary War in Tolkien’s Fall of Arthur.” Brendan Anderson
“Tolkien and Nietsche’s Ubermensch.” Ali Mirzabayati

Session IV Undergraduate Voices [In-person]
Harry Driscoll. Bady Kaye. Mary McLellan. Kathryn Wyckoff

For more details about the schedule and registration, check out the website.

Popular Culture Association

April 13-16, 2022 [Virtual]

The late registration deadline is April 1 for anyone not presenting a paper at the conference. More information here. The following is a draft program – always check the final version on the PCA website for days and times. “Get-togethers” are more informal than the regular paper sessions.

Wednesday April 13: Tolkien Fanfiction Live Reading. Get-together. Chair: Maria Alberto

Thursday April 14: Literary and Cultural Studies Approaches to Tolkien
“Tolkien, Old English, and Identity.” Anna Smol
“Point of View and In-Universe Authorship of the ‘Silmarillion.'” Dawn Walls-Thumma
“The Deep Roots Untouchable by Frost: Romanticism in J.R.R. Tolkien.” Lily Tun
“From Mushrooms to Man-flesh: The Cultural Signficance of Food in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.” Sara Brown

Thursday April 14: Queer and Critical Race Approaches to Tolkien
“Hardly a word…unconsidered”: Un-Closeting Queer Desire in The Lord of the Rings through (Socio)linguistic Analysis: ‘Mate,’ ‘My/me Dear,’ and ‘Treasure.'” Olivia K. Burgham
“Wondered at this change”: Queer potential and telling silence in the relationship of Legolas and Gimli.” Hannah Mendro
“More Cannot Be Said: Using a Critical, Semi-Systematic Literature Review to Understand Academic Silence on the Queer Potential of Legolas and Gimli.” V. Elizabeth King
“Playing Back: LOTRO and Its Role in Deconstructing Tolkien.” Cordeliah G. Logson and Gideon Cooper.

Thursday April 14: Where to publish in Tolkien and Inklings Study. Get-together. Chair: Perry Neil Harrison

Friday April 15: Multidisciplinary Approaches
“Tolkien, Lovecraft, and Unknowable Evil.” Perry Neil Harrison
“Teamwork in Middle-earth.” Michael Joseph Urick
“Fantasy and Foucault: Teaching Tolkien in the Age of Jordan Peterson.” Christopher James Lockett
“A Tolkienian Pharmakon for Our Times.” Sonali Arvind Chunodkar.

Friday April 15: Roundtable on Teaching Tolkien
Chair: Robin Reid. Presenters: Maria Alberto, Leslie Donovan, Tom Emanuel, Christopher James Lockett, Anna Smol

Friday April 15: Business Meeting

Friday April 15: Race, Nationalism, Totalitarianism, Activism, and Tolkien
“Yellow, Black and White in Chinese Translations of Tolkien.” Eric Reinders
“Tolkien the Racialist and the Monstrous Races Tradition: Tartars, Muslims, and Jews.” Anna Czarnowus
“‘Of lesser and alien race’: Layers and influences of intertwined tyranny and racism in Middle-earth.” Alastair Whyte
“Whiskered Men with Bombs: Mythology, Middle-earth, and Modern Environmental Activism.” Amber Lehning

Friday April 15: Tolkien Live Reading. Get-together. Chair: Robin A. Reid

Saturday April 16: Roundtable on the Future of Tolkien Studies
Chair: Robin Reid. Presenters: Sara Brown, Leslie Donovan, Sonali Arvind Chunodkar, Andrew T Draper

As you might have noticed in the above program, I’m involved in two of the PCA sessions — so, back to work!

Save the dates!

31 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by in Conferences, Medieval, Medievalisms, Research, Tolkien

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Listening to sounds of the Bodleian in a howling snowstorm.

I sometimes like to listen to the Sounds of the Bodleian Library while working. The soundscapes transport me back to happy days researching in the library, where I hope to spend time again one day. In the meantime, a howling snowstorm is keeping us indoors here in Nova Scotia, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look forward to connecting with people online, dreaming of spring and summer, and listening to some great ideas on Tolkien in upcoming seminars.

Mythopoeic Society logo

First up is the Online Midwinter Seminar on The Inklings and Horror: Fantasy’s Dark Corners, sponsored by a Mythopoeic Society group, taking place this coming weekend on February 4th and 5th. You can see a list of speakers and topics on the Mythopoeic Society blog, including a number of papers on Tolkien. Friday night is reserved mainly for social activities, and the presentations are tentatively scheduled for Saturday. You can register for the seminar here. This is the first of midwinter seminars that the Mythopoeic Society is hoping to hold in the future.

Tolkien in Vermont conference

18th Annual Tolkien in Vermont Conference, April 2, 2022. The theme is the idea of history and the keynote speaker will be Dr. Gergely Nagy. This event is planned as a hybrid conference, with in-person attendance at the University of Vermont as well as online participation. The schedule of speakers has not yet been announced, but I assume that more information will be forthcoming on the Tolkien in Vermont Facebook page.

The Popular Culture Association online conference will take place April 13-16, 2022. The final schedule has not yet been posted, but we do know that the Tolkien Studies area will have the following sessions: 1. Literary and Cultural Approaches to Tolkien; 2. Queer and Critical Race Approaches to Tolkien; 3. Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Tolkien; 4. Roundtable on Teaching Tolkien; 5. Race, Racisms, and Tolkien; 6. Religion, Spirituality, and Tolkien; 7. A Roundtable on the Future of Tolkien Studies. Each session will have 4 or 5 speakers. I’ll have more details when the final program is out. The deadline for early registration is February 11.

Kalamazoo campus swan pond

International Congress on Medieval Studies, University of Western Michigan, May 9-14, 2022. This conference is online once again this year, with plans to move to a hybrid model in 2023. A Sneak Preview of the program has now been posted on the conference homepage. Sessions on Tolkien include: 1. Medieval Understandings of the Nature of Evil as Depicted by Tolkien; 2. Tolkien and the Medieval Animal; 3. Tolkien and Medieval Poets: A Session in Memory of Richard West; 4. Medieval Tolkien and the Nature of Middle-earth (a Roundtable); 5. New Readings of The Lord of the Rings. Each of these sessions includes 3 or 4 presenters. Other sessions on medievalisms also include single presentations on Tolkien. I’ll post more details after the final program is published. You can find registration and other information on the Congress website.

Just before the International Congress on Medieval Studies, the Tolkien at Kalamazoo group sponsors a one-day symposium, to be held this year on May 7. This year’s theme is “Missing Mothers.” I expect more details to become available soon about this event. One place to find out more information as it becomes available is at the Tolkien at Kalamazoo Symposium 2022 link on the Tolkienists.org site, which includes emails for the organizers.

Of course, once summer arrives there will be more: in July, the Tolkien Society Seminar, the International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds, and the Once and Future Fantasies conference at the University of Glasgow; in August, the Mythopoeic Society, and, in September, Oxonmoot. But for now, I’ll work on the papers I’m scheduled to give this spring (at PCA and ICMS) and I’ll look forward to connecting with Tolkien scholars in our virtual world.

Tolkien Studies, from ancient Greek to modern literature

09 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by in Conferences, Tolkien

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

This week offers quite a range of talks by Tolkien scholars, and all online of course, so even if we can’t meet in person, we can attend sessions that would normally be out of reach.

The Tolkien at Vermont conference is back this year with a one-day event on the theme of Tolkien and the Classics. The keynote speaker is the Very Rev. John Houghton, who will be giving a talk on “Tolkien’s calques of classicisms: Who Knew Elvish Latin, what did the Rohirrim read, and why was Bilbo cheeky?”

Other papers at the conference trace Tolkien’s connections to Virgil, Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, and more. The conference takes place on Saturday, April 10, from 8:30 – 6:00 EST, free on Zoom. Check out the full schedule and how to request the Zoom link on the Tolkienists.org website.

Also on Saturday, April 10, the Tolkien Society AGM will feature Professor Verlyn Flieger as the annual guest speaker, talking about “Waiting for Earendel.” Members of the Society will get a Zoom link, but the general public will be able to watch on Facebook and YouTube. Go to the Tolkien Society announcement for more details.

From the classics to modern literature: earlier this week, Signum University sponsored an author chat with Dr. Holly Ordway, author of the recently published Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth beyond the Middle Ages. Dr. Ordway discusses the importance of acknowledging Tolkien’s interest in contemporary literature. You can find this Signum Symposium on YouTube.

What are Tolkien scholars talking about? Previews of spring & summer conferences

26 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Medievalisms, Research, Tolkien

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I usually post full details of various conference programs closer to the time of the events, but for now, I’ll just post session titles for an overview of the upcoming Tolkien conference season this spring and summer. Details may change over the next few months, so always follow the links to the official programs for final details.

Tolkien at Vermont: April 4

Tolkien in Vermont conference

April 4, 2020
University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
Organizer: Dr. Chris Vaccaro

[May 12 edit: conference cancelled due to COVID-19]

Special theme:  Tolkien and Classical Antiquities

The Tolkien in Vermont website describes the conference as “an annual weekend of academic papers, fireside readings, and bonhomie, bringing together seasoned academics, students, independent scholars, and the general public…”  — very true, in my experience.

The program hasn’t been posted yet, but this 17th annual event at the University of Vermont has announced its keynote speaker, John Wm. Houghton, well known to Tolkien scholars for his various publications and editorial work.  Go to the website for more details.

Tolkien at Popular Culture Association: April 15 – 18

April 15 – 18, 2020
Philadelphia, US
Organizer: Dr. Robin Anne Reid

[May 12 edit: conference cancelled due to COVID-19]

Tolkien Studies Area PCA 2020
Registration is open.
All of the Tolkien sessions take place on Saturday, April 18. View the schedule here.

Tolkien Studies I:  Race and Tolkien

Tolkien Studies II: The Legendarium

Tolkien Studies III: Multidisciplinary Tolkien

Tolkien Studies IV: The Future Of Tolkien Studies

Kalamazoo, Michigan: May 6 – 10

Kalamazoo campus swan pond

Tolkien Symposium

May 6, 2020
Kalamazoo, MI
Organizers: Dr. Yvette Kisor and Dr. Chris Vaccaro

[May 12 edit: conference cancelled due to COVID-19]

The Seminar is usually scheduled the day before the International Congress on Medieval Studies sessions begin. The deadline for proposals has just passed, but the program hasn’t been announced yet.

International Congress on Medieval Studies  

May 7 – 10, 2020
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan

[May 12 edit: conference cancelled due to COVID-19]

For more details about these sessions, you can check the sneak preview of the Congress program. Registration opens in February.

Thursday, May 7. 10 a.m.
Medieval World-Building: Tolkien, His Precursors and Legacies
Sponsor: Fantasy Research Hub, School of Critical Studies, Univ. of Glasgow
Organizer: Dimitra Fimi, Fantasy Research Hub, School of Critical Studies, Univ. of Glasgow; Kristine A. Swank, Univ. of Glasgow
Presider: Kristine A. Swank

Friday, May 8. 1:30 p.m.
Deadscapes: Wastelands, Necropoli, and Other Tolkien-inspired Places of Death, Decay, and Corruption (A Panel Discussion)
Sponsor: Tales after Tolkien Society
Organizer: Geoffrey B. Elliott, Independent Scholar
Presider: Carrie Pagels, Independent Scholar

Saturday, May 9. 10 a.m.
Tolkien and Se Wyrm
Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo
Organizer: Christopher Vaccaro, Univ. of Vermont
Presider: Yvette Kisor, Ramapo College

Saturday, May 9. 1:30 p.m.
Tolkien’s Paratexts, Appendices, Annals, and Marginalia (A Roundtable)
Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo
Organizer: Christopher Vaccaro, Univ. of Vermont
Presider: Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State Univ.

Saturday, May 9. 3:30 p.m.
Tolkien’s Chaucer
Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo
Organizer: Christopher Vaccaro, Univ. of Vermont
Presider: Christopher Vaccaro

Sunday, May 10. 8:30 a.m.
Tolkien and Manuscript Studies
Organizer: William Fliss, Marquette Univ.
Presider: William Fliss

For more details about these sessions, go to the sneak preview of Congress sessions. The final program will be posted on the ICMS site.

Leeds, UK: July 5 – 9

International Medieval Congress, Leeds

Tolkien Society Seminar

July 5, 2020

The Tolkien Society sponsors a day-long series of presentations the day before the International Medieval Congress begins. No details available yet, but check the Tolkien Society Seminar page later.

International Medieval Congress

[May 12 edit: conference cancelled due to COVID-19. A pared-down version will be available online. Check later posts for more details.]

July 6 – 9, 2020
Co-organizers: Dr. Dimitra Fimi and Dr. Andrew Higgins
Go to Dr. Higgins’s blog for more details about the program.

The special theme of the 2020 Congress is “Borders,” which explains why there are three sessions on Borders in Tolkien’s Medievalism. Registration opens on February 10th.

J.R.R. Tolkien: Medieval Roots and Modern Branches
Sponsor: School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow
Organiser: Dr. Andrew Higgins, Independent Scholar
Moderator/Chair: Deirdre Dawson, Independent Scholar
Session Day/Time: Monday 6 July (11:15-12:45)  

New Sources and Approaches to Tolkien’s Medievalism – A Round Table Discussion
Sponsor: School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow
Organiser and Moderator: Dr. Andrew Higgins, Independent Scholar
Session Day/Time: Tuesday 7 July (19:00-20:00)   

Borders in Tolkien’s Medievalism I     
Sponsor: School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow 
Organiser: Dr. Andrew Higgins, Independent Scholar 
Moderator/Chair: Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State University 
Session Day/Time: Thursday 9 July (9:00-10:30)  

Borders in Tolkien’s Medievalism II 
Sponsor: School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow 
Organiser: Dr. Andrew Higgins, Independent Scholar 
Moderator/Chair: Sara Brown, Independent Scholar  
Session Day/Time:  Thursday 9 July (11:15-12:45)  

Borders in Tolkien’s Medievalism III
Sponsor: School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow  
Organiser and Moderator/Chair: Dr. Andrew Higgins, Independent Scholar
Session Day/Time: Thursday 9 July (14:15-15:45)  

And looking ahead to the summer:

Mythcon: July 31-August 3

Mythopoeic Society

July 31 – August 3, 2020
Mythopoeic Society – Mythcon 51
Albuquerque, New Mexico

[May 12 edit: conference postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19]

Theme: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien

Registration is now open but the call for papers and program haven’t appeared yet.

Oxonmoot: September 3 – 6

Tolkien Society

The Tolkien Society – Oxonmoot
September 3 – 6
St. Anne’s College, Oxford

[June 6 edit: Oxonmoot will be held online. Oxonmoot Online will take place September 18-20. Check the Tolkien Society website for more details as they become available.]

Registration is now open but a program will come later. The call for papers will open February 9th.

I’d be happy to hear about any conferences I’ve missed in the comments.

Tolkien conference sessions this month

03 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Conferences, Tolkien

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

April is a good month for Tolkien conferences in the U.S.

Tolkien in Vermont

In a few days, the 16th annual Tolkien in Vermont conference will take place at the University of Vermont in Burlington.  This year’s theme is Tolkien and Horror, and the keynote speaker is Dr. Yvette Kisor from Ramapo College, who will be talking about “The horror of the unnarrated: Implications for Tolkien’s reader.”

This is always a small and friendly conference, and this year there’s an extra treat for participants – a private, advance screening of the Tolkien biopic directed by Dome Karukoski.

In addition to Dr. Kisor’s keynote address and the after-movie discussions, there will be sessions on:

  • Nature, Madness, and Humor
  • The Perils of Faerie
  • UVM Undergraduate Voices
  • Horror of Words
  • Horrors of Modernity
  • On the Borders of Horror

You can find the full schedule of speakers and titles for Friday, April 5 to Saturday, April 6 here.

Popular Culture Association logo

A couple of weeks later, the Popular Culture Association conference will be held in Washington, DC from April 17 to April 20.  In contrast to the Vermont meeting, this is a massive event with many different subject areas. The Tolkien sessions, though, organized by Dr. Robin Reid, take place Thursday, April 18 to Friday, April 19 and focus on the following topics:

  • Adaptations of Tolkien’s Legendarium
  • Enchantment, Healing, and Despair in The Lord of the Rings
  • Multidisciplinary Tolkien Studies
  • Landscapes in Lee, Tolkien, and Hemingway
  • Digital Humanities and Tolkien Praxis Roundtable
  • Digital Humanities and Tolkien Theory Roundtable
  • The Future of Tolkien Studies Roundtable

The full list of speakers and titles can be found on the PCA Tolkien Studies area page.

To keep up with news from the Tolkien group at PCA, you can check out their public Facebook page by searching for “Tolkien Studies at Popular Culture/ American Culture Association.”

CFP: Romances in Middle-earth

30 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Calls for Papers, Tolkien

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Tolkien in Vermont conferenceThis call for papers comes from Chris Vaccaro, one of the organizers of the annual Tolkien at UVM Conference in Burlington, Vermont.

14th Annual Tolkien at University of Vermont Conference
Saturday April 8th, 8:30am-5:30 p.m.

Theme: Romances in Middle-earth

Organizers of the Tolkien at UVM Conference are now accepting abstracts for the 2017 conference until the February 1st deadline.

We welcome papers on every topic but will give priority to those addressing the theme. Tolkien wrote that he had the romances of William Morris in mind when writing The Lord of the Rings. We also know he was inspired by the Arthurian romances of England, Wales, and France. Tolkien’s own interlacing narrative style is very much derived from this medieval genre (while also anticipating the Post-modern). Additionally, Tolkien wrote of numerous romances of great intensity and poignancy within his narrative framework. Papers might consider these within the context of miscegenation, gender fluidity, or the homo-erotic, or they might explore other areas of interest.

Please submit abstracts by the February 1st deadline to Christopher Vaccaro at cvaccaro@uvm.edu

Tolkien in Vermont 2016 program

05 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Conferences, Fan studies, Tolkien

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

Tolkien in Vermont conferenceThe Tolkien in Vermont conference will take place this coming weekend. This is a small, friendly conference that brings together every year a group of faculty, independent scholars, and students. This year’s theme is Tolkien and Popular Culture.

If you look at the program below, you’ll see a couple of pretty long titles! This is all in the spirit of fun — Kris Larsen has been devising longer and longer titles every year, and when the keynote speaker Robin Reid saw Kristine’s title, she decided to go one better with her own lengthy title. In reaction, I’ve decided to stick to one-word titles!

April 8-9, 2016
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont
Lafayette L207

Friday, April 8
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Tolkien Fireside Reading
Lafayette L207

Saturday, April 9
8:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Lafayette L207

Session 1: 8:30 – 10:00

—Yvette Kisor (Ramapo College) “Queer Tolkien: State of the Field”
—Anna Smol (Mount Saint Vincent University) “Sister-sons” read the abstract here [pdf]
—Chris Vaccaro (University of Vermont) “Saruman’s Sexual Otherness”

Session 2:  10:00 – 11:45. Undergraduate Voices

—Christopher Kelm (U. of Vermont) “Magic and Sorcery: Good and Evil in Tolkien’s Middle-earth”
—Kit Loomis (U. of Vermont) “Not Dead, Legally: Necromancy, the Vyne Ring Curse, and Oath Limitations”
—Liam McAuliffe (U. of Vermont) “Lost in the Lens Flare: Tolkien’s Many Shades of Evil”
—Ryan Quinn (U. of Vermont) “Iarwen Ben-Adar: The Ancient Evil of Arda”

Lunch break  11:45-1:00

Session 3: 1:00-2:30
Keynote:  Robin Reid (Texas A&M University – Commerce)

Tolkien and popular culture: Being the Chronicle of Quests from Fandom to Academia and Back Again as the Island of Anglophone Literary Studies in the United States underwent Transformations During the 1970s to 2000s of the Fourth Age of the World Due to Progressive Movements of the Twentieth Century Challenging Oppressive Hierarchies Relating to Gender, Race, and Sexual Identification (Though not so much Class because “America” and Its Weird Obsession with Bootstraps) as Cultural Studies Swept like a Wave Over the Ivory Towers (Keep in Mind It’s a Simile not an Allegory). Plus Tattoos.

Session 4:  2:30 – 4:00

—Kristine Larsen (University of Connecticut) “Kind People!!!: The Adventures of Svetlana Snape Down the Hobbit Hole; Being a (Semi) Serious and Scholarly Dissertation on The Thread ™  That Ate the Tolkien Society Facebook Page (And Judged it to Strangely Taste Like Bacon); In Which the Author Endeavors to Answer Two Great Primordial Questions, Namely (1) What Do Palindromes, Trebuchets, Quantum Physics and Hello Kitty Have to Do With the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (Clearly a Rhetorical Question Given That the Obvious Answer is – Very Little), and (2) What Exactly is a Pant of Thong Ale? (The Answer to Which Promises to Shed Great Light on the Gestalt of the Tolkien Fandom)”
—Andrew Peterson (Independent Scholar) “Hobbit Forming: How the Animated Versions of The Hobbit and The Return of the King by Rankin / Bass introduced Middle-earth to a Generation of Wanderers”
—James Williamson (University of Vermont) “Tolkien and Popular Publishing: the Creation of the Fantasy Genre”

Session 5: 4:00 – 5:30

—Gerry Blair (Independent Scholar) “Tolkien Fandom and Pop Culture: The Polite and the Vulgar”
—Leonard Neidorf (Harvard University) “Creation from Literary Criticism in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur”

Tolkien in Vermont 2016 poster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tolkien conference season 2016

31 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Medieval, Medievalisms, Tolkien

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Posted by in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Tolkien

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

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.

Tolkien at UVM conference April 10-12

07 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Conferences, Medieval, Medievalisms, Old English, Tolkien

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

The 12th Annual Tolkien at University of Vermont conference is just days away.  The conference is free and open to the public. It starts with a Friday night Fireside reading at which participants can get up and read their favorite passages, and continues on Saturday with a day of conference presentations. On Sunday afternoon, the University Tolkien Club organizes a “Springle-Ring Shire Festival” with all kinds of fun activities.

This year’s conference theme is Medieval Verse Narratives, and the keynote speaker is Dr. Michael D.C. Drout, who will be speaking about “Scholarship as Art, Art as Scholarship: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf.”

The other presentations are:

Gerry Blair (Independent Scholar). “J.R.R. Tolkien, Performance Artist and Modern Medievalist.”

Jamie Williamson (University of Vermont). “Verses and Prose: Medieval Narrative, Nineteenth Century Medievalism, and Tolkien.”

Andrew Liptak (Independent Scholar/Norwich University). “Modern Fantasy’s Roots in Medieval Verse.”

Kristine Larsen (Central Connecticut State University). “Guinevere, Grimhild, and the Corrigan: Witches and Bitches in Tolkien’s Medieval Narrative Verse, or, Good Girls Don’t Use Magic (Except if You’re Galadriel, but Elf Magic is Diff erent, and Who Ever Said Galadriel was a Good Girl?)”

Andrew C. Peterson (Harvard). “A Brief Exploration of Tolkien’s Alliterative Verse and Echoes of The Fall of Arthur Heard in Middle-earth”

Christopher Vaccaro (University of Vermont). “’Dyrne langað’: Secret Longing in Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings.”

Anna Smol (Mount Saint Vincent University). “Poetic Time-Travel in The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son”

Cheryl Hunter (Independent Scholar). “Beowulf and Thorin as Ancestral Heroes: Their Choices, and the Dragons They Face.”

and Undergraduate Voices

For more information and to view past programs, you can go to the conference website.