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November challenge at tolkienshortfanworks

The challenge for November has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. 

The thematic challenge for November is: refuge.

The formal challenge is: include imitation of a sound.
The simplest way to do this is to include a pre-existing word that imitates a sound, for instance: meow, which imitates a sound made by a cat.
But you can also try for something more challenging, if you like: can you make the sound of your sentence or phrase imitate the flowing of a river or the rustling of trees?
Also, think of what Treebeard does with bits of Elvish, stringing them together in Entish fashion:
Taurelilómëa-tumbalemorna Tumbaletaurëa Lómëanor
Like him, feel free to make things up!

As always, these can be filled independently and also freely combined with SWG and other challenges. 

New participants welcome!

More details on these challenges at the linked post.

November 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals

Popular Culture Association: Tolkien Studies Area

The Tolkien Studies Area (TSA) welcomes proposals in any area of Tolkien studies. We welcome scholars in all period specializations, from all disciplines, using any critical theory. We encourage interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary as well as collaborative work. The TSA defines "Tolkien studies" as including, but not limited to, Tolkien's Legendarium; adaptations, transformative works, and translations; cultural studies; critical race studies; digital and new media studies; fan and reception studies; feminist, gender, and queer studies; literary studies; medieval and medievalist studies; media and marketing; religious studies; source studies; tourism studies; and translation studies.

Academics, independent scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students are invited to submit individual paper proposals, paper session proposals, and/or roundtable proposals. Presenters may present one paper and participate in one roundtable session.

All presenters must join the Popular Culture Association as members as well as pay a registration fee to attend the conference. These are separate fees that have been restructured to a tiered system taking into account that PCA members range from undergraduates to retirees, with salaries ranging from part-time, minimum wage to retiree pensions and social security.

All PCA sessions are scheduled in 1.5-hour slots. Paper sessions consist of four presenters, each speaking for fifteen minutes, followed by a group Q&A.

Roundtables are informal interactive discussions between five to seven participants and the audience. A roundtable focuses on a timely topic and is designed to raise questions and brainstorm for future scholarship. If you have an idea for a special topic for an academic journal issue or for an anthology, email Robin to find out how to organize a paper session and/or roundtable on the topic!

For individual paper proposals, please submit contact information (name, institutional affiliation [or "independent scholar"], e-mail address, and telephone number), your presentation's title, and a 500-word proposal describing your topic, chosen theory, methodology, argument, and its relevance to current scholarship.

For a paper session proposal, please submit your contact information, all the presenters' contact information, and a 100–300-word proposal for the session. All participants for your proposed paper session or roundtable must register for the conference and submit their individual proposals through the PCA database so they can be added to the paper session.

If you wish to organize a roundtable, please contact me directly at robinareid@fastmail.com. Only Area Chairs or PCA Admins can enter roundtables into the PCA database. Please note that the TSA can schedule only two roundtables; however, there are no limits on the number of paper sessions we can present!

The 2025 PCA Conference will be held in-person at the Marriott in New Orleans, from April 16-19, 2025.

See the 2025 PCA Conference website to submit paper proposals. Proposals are due by November 30, 2024.

Call for Proposals: Anthology on Women and Gender

We invite submissions for an anthology focused on women and gender in Tolkien’s writings, ‘Great Heart and Strength:’ New Essays on Women and Gender in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien. In 2015, Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie A. Donovan published Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J.R.R. Tolkien, the first volume dedicated to the subject of women in Tolkien’s works and life, which collected the major milestones of feminist scholarship in Tolkien studies alongside new essays. Since then, feminist scholarship and gender theory has flourished in and outside of Tolkien studies. This volume will honor Croft and Donovan’s work and build on the past decade of feminist scholarship in Tolkien studies by presenting a new collection of essays on women and gender in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Please send your proposal (no more than 300 words) and a short bio (100 words) to cami.agan@oc.edu by March 15, 2025.Working bibliographies encouraged.

Proposals should focus on women and gender in the legendarium or in non-legendarium texts by J.R.R. Tolkien, reflecting contemporary feminist and intersectional theory. Proposals may also focus on non-binary, trans, and gender fluid interpretations, as well as non-anthropomorphic topics such as landscapes and environments. All proposals should convey a thorough knowledge of previous feminist scholarship in Tolkien studies as well as current theory outside of Tolkien studies. We highly encourage intersectional work, which analyzes how gender intersects with other aspects of identity (such as race, sexuality, class, etc.).

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Female characters in the legendarium
• Female characters in Tolkien’s non-legendarium works (such as The Fall of Arthur, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, etc.)
• Non-binary, trans, and gender fluid interpretations of characters
• Landscapes, environments, and material culture
• Historical conceptions of gender
• Intersections with race, sexuality, socio-economic class, etc.
• Postcolonial analyses
• Women and gender in adaptations of Tolkien’s work
• Women scholars of the legendarium and/or women-centered treatments of Tolkien’s legendarium

Mythcon, the conference of the Mythopoeic Society, is scheduled for August 2025, and its theme is Women and Gender in Sci-Fi Fantasy, and we hope to organize several panels from the accepted submissions.

Mythopoeic Society Online Midsummer Seminar: Women and Gender in Mythopoeic Fantasy

The Mythopoeic Society invites paper submissions for an online conference that focuses on intersectional feminist approaches to women and gender in fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction or other mythopoeic work. While the focus of this seminar is women and gender in mythopoeic works, we encourage proposals that acknowledge and analyze the intersectionality of gender with other aspects of identity, experience, and embodiment, including the non-human. Proposals should engage with developments in women and gender studies that both acknowledge and seek to move beyond the work of Perilous and Fair, drawing on theories and methodologies from recent years.

Papers, panels, and roundtables from a variety of critical perspectives and disciplines are welcome. We are interested in ANY form of media — text, graphic novels, comics, television, movies, music and music videos, games — as long as it can be described as fantasy or otherwise mythopoeic. We also welcome papers on the work of either of our Guests of Honor.

Each presentation will receive a 50-minute slot to allow time for questions, but individual presentations should be timed for oral presentation in 40 minutes maximum. Two or three presenters who wish to present short, related papers may also share one 50-minute slot.

Individual proposals (~200 words) with bios (150 words, maximum) should be sent to: oms-chair @ mythcon.org by March 31, 2025.

Group (two or three presenters) proposals should group the individual proposals together to send to: oms-chair @ mythcon.org by March 31, 2025.

Working bibliographies are welcome, but not required.

The seminar will be held August 2-5, 2025 on Zoom and Discord.

The full call for papers and more on the midsummer online seminar can be found here.

Coming Soon: Call for Proposals for McFarland's Critical Explorations in Tolkien Studies Series

We are sharing this information on behalf of Robin Anne Reid:

I recently signed a Letter of Agreement with McFarland Publishers to become the series editor for a new series, Critical Explorations in Tolkien Studies. The series will open for proposals in 2025 after I assemble an advisory board.

Scholars can submit proposals in either of two tracks. The first track is for single-author or collaborative monographs and edited collections written for academic experts that should be between 70-100K words long. The second track is for shorter Critical Companions, between 40-50K words long, written for a general audience including but not limited to students and fans. Submissions for both tracks will go through a double-blind peer review process.

Proposals on topics relating to Tolkien's published works as well as to the edited posthumous publications; the adaptations for film, television, and games; the translations; and fan transformative works (textual and visual) or other reception studies may be submitted to either track.

While peer-reviewed scholarship is a professional necessity for tenure-track and tenured academics, there is also value in shorter works, informed by critical theories, that focus on an aspect of single work or a thematic group of works, especially ones that have received less critical attention than The Lord of the Rings. The Critical Companions are designed to introduce a more general audience to analytical approaches and the scholarship in Tolkien studies by situating works in their socio-historical contexts; explaining how the text or texts fit into the field of Tolkien studies; and modelling how to apply critical theories to analyze primary texts.

The primary goals of the series are to add significant original contributions to Tolkien scholarship by developing and to create and support greater diversity in the field by embracing a wide definition of what Tolkien studies includes in relation to authors, texts, topics, theories, and methods.

Both single author and collaborative works, especially those foregrounding intersectionality, are explicitly welcome from authors without regard to ability status, age, caste, class, ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, or sexuality. Approaches can include but are not limited to theories and methods from class studies, cultural studies, critical race studies; digital and new media studies; fan and reception studies; feminist, gender, and queer studies; film studies, languages and linguistics, literary studies (any period); medieval and medievalist studies; pedagogical studies, modernist and postmodernist studies, media and marketing studies; religious and theological studies; source studies; stylistics, and tourism studies.

Contingent faculty, early-career faculty, graduate students, independent scholars, tenure-track and tenured faculty in the Americas and worldwide who are trained in any discipline and period specialization are invited to submit proposals in either track and to consider applying to become m become a member of the advisory board.

The call for applications to the advisory board will be circulated shortly. Please email robinareid@fastmail with any questions you may have.

Tolkien at UVM 2025: Tolkien and War

The theme for the 2025 Tolkien at UVM conference will be Tolkien and War. The conference will be held on April 5, 2025, at the University of Vermont. Recent conferences have been hybrid and welcomed presentations and attendees online as well.

Signum University Regional Moots

These small, regional conferences are held at various dates and locations. See the Regional Moots page for more details.

Journal of Fandom Studies: Open Call for Papers

Journal of Fandom Studies seeks to offer scholars a dedicated, peer-reviewed publication that promotes current scholarship into the fields of fan and audience studies across a variety of media. We focus on the critical exploration, within a wide range of disciplines and fan cultures, of issues surrounding production and consumption of popular media (including film, music, television, sports and gaming).

The editors welcome general papers (between 6000 and 9000 words), interviews and book reviews (between 800 and 1200 words) as well as suggestions for thematic issues.

All articles submitted should be original work and must not be under consideration by other publications.

See the Journal of Fandom Studies open call for papers for more information.

White Oliphaunt 2024

In the White Oliphaunt gift exchange, Tolkien fans sign up to exchange humorous gifts with each other.

Schedule

• Sign ups open: November 1st 
• Sign ups close: November 30th 
• Assignments out: December 1st 
• Anonymous posting + Last call for dropouts: December 24th 
• Gift reveal: December 31st

Tolkien Horror Week 2024

Welcome to Tolkien Horror Week! This is a new event, following in the footsteps of Terrifying Tolkien Week, last run in 2019. This event celebrates all things spooky and creepy in Tolkien’s work—both the things he tells us explicitly and the things he leaves up to our imaginations.

The event will run from October 27th to November 2nd and accepts all types of fanworks. There is an AO3 collection for the event here.

Below are some suggested prompts for each day of the week. They are not mandatory; feel free to combine them or disregard them entirely.

Day 1: Angband & Utumno | seeth all things crooked | captivity
Day 2: Angmar, Rhudaur, & Minas Morgul | of such dread and dark enchantment | sorcery
Day 3: Mordor & the Dead Marshes | the pitiless land | control
Day 4: The Barrow-downs & the Old Forest | the clinging mists | corruption
Day 5: Mirkwood, Nan Elmoth, & Taur-nu-Fuin | the shadows grew long in the forest | hunting
Day 6: Nan Dungortheb & the Paths of the Dead | by perilous paths | terror
Day 7: Isengard, Moria, & Númenor | we cannot get out | trapped

Please mention @tolkienhorrorweek in the body of your post and tag #tolkienhorrorweek and #tolkienhorrorweek2024 in the first 10 tags. You may also submit a post.

Given the nature of the event, please also tag for any potential triggers or content warnings and place any NSFW content beneath a read more/link to AO3.

For more information, please see the FAQ. If you have any questions, drop them in the ask box.

Tolkien Latin American and Caribbean Week 2024

A week dedicated to celebrate Latin American and Caribbean cultures, peoples and traditions through Tolkien's Legendarium. It will start on October 21st (Monday) at 00:00, Brasilia time (what time is it in my country?). The week will end on October 27th, but feel free to post after the week is over. I'll still check tags, mentions and submissions for a while.

Everyone is free to participate, you don't have to be latino or caribbean nor have deep knowledge about Latin America/Caribbean to participate on this event. All creations are welcome - arts, graphics, gifs, fanfics, etc. - as long as they represent a Latin American/Caribbean element(s). It can be languages, cultures, traditions, anything from Latin America/Caribbean. Creations should be Safe for Work, no explicit content will be accepted to make this week accessible to everyone.

Please don't forget to tag your contributions with #tolkienlatam&caribbeanweek and mention me @tolkienlatamandcaribbeanweek.

Prompts

↬ Day One: Eru Ilúvatar | The Beginning | The World and All That Is

↬ Day Two: Ainur | The Powers of Arda | The Shaping of Arda

↬ Day Three: Eldar | The Awakening | Those Who Stayed and Those Who Left

↬ Day Four: Dwarves | Family | Culture

↬ Day Five: Men | Ancestors | Kingdoms

↬ Day Six: Hobbits | Dances | Music

↬ Day Seven: Freeform | AU | OCs

Other Links

• About the event
• FAQ
• Rules
• Important notes

Half-Elven Week 2024

Day 1 - Being Different; Doriathrim - Lúthien, Dior, Eluréd, Elurín, Elwing

Day 2 - The Choice; People of Sirion - Elwing, Eärendil, Elrond, Elros

Day 3 - Heritage; Númenoreans - Elros, his children and descendants

Day 4 - Power; People of Rivendell - Elrond, his children and descendants

Day 5 - Legacy; Princes of Dol Amroth - Galador, Gilmith, and their descendants

Day 6 - Loss; Parents of half-elves - Melian, Thingol, Tuor, Idril, Beren, Nimloth, Celebrían, Elros's wife, Imrazôr, Mithrellas, and others

Day 7 - Freeform

Lúthien Week 2024

Tolkien Society: Christopher Tolkien Centenary Conference

The Tolkien Society is pleased to announce it will be hosting the online Christopher Tolkien Centenary Conference on Saturday 23^rd and Sunday 24^th November 2024. Registration is free and can be done on the conference webpage.

Confirmed Speakers

• Douglas A. Anderson — editor of The Annotated Hobbit
• Nicholas Birns — author of The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien
• Sara Brown — lecturer on Tolkien, and Language and Literature Department Chair at Signum University
• Sonali Chunodkar — researcher on secondary beliefs in Tolkien’s works
• Michael D. C. Drout — editor of Beowulf and the Critics, and J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia; co-editor of Tolkien Studies
• Vincent Ferré — Professor in Comparative Literature (University Sorbonne Nouvelle), translator, and editor of Dictionnaire Tolkien. Literary advisor to the Estate of Christopher Tolkien
• Dimitra Fimi — Tolkien scholar and fantasy professor at the University of Glasgow, co-editor of A Secret Vice, author of Tolkien, Race and Cultural History
• Verlyn Flieger — editor of Smith of Wootton Major, The Story of Kullervo, and The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun; author of Splintered Light
• William Fliss — Tolkien archivist at Marquette University’s Raynor Library
• John Garth — author of Tolkien and the Great War, The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien and Tolkien at Exeter College
• Christopher Gilson — chief editor of Parma Eldalamberon and leading member of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship
• Nick Groom — author of Twenty-First-Century Tolkien
• Peter Grybauskas — editor of The Battle of Maldon: together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth
• Wayne G. Hammond — co-editor of The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Roverandom, and co-author of J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion
• Andrew Higgins — co-editor of A Secret Vice
• Thomas Honegger — co-editor of Sub-creating Arda and Laughter in Middle-earth: Humour in and around the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien
• Carl F. Hostetter — editor of The Nature of Middle-earth and Vinyar Tengwar
• John Howe — artist who has illustrated covers for The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The History of Middle-earth
• Yvette Kisor — researcher on medieval literature and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, co-editor of Tolkien Studies and Tolkien and Alterity
• Kristine Larsen — writer and researcher on science and astronomy in Tolkien’s works
• Alan Lee — artist who has illustrated The Lord of the Rings, The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Númenor
• Ted Nasmith — artist who has illustrated The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales
• Richard Ovenden — Bodley’s Librarian and co-editor of The Great Tales Never End
• John D. Rateliff — author of The History of The Hobbit
• Robin Reid — researcher on Tolkien fandom, fan fiction, and race in Tolkien’s works
• Christina Scull — co-editor of The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Roverandom, and co-author of J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion
• Brian Sibley — author of The Fall of Númenor
• Chris Smith — the Tolkien editor of HarperCollins
• James Tauber — researcher on corpus linguistics and digital humanities for Tolkien’s works

The full schedule will be published closer to the event.

Teitho October/November Challenge: Legacy

Welcome to the Teitho Contest, where you can participate with a variety of other writers and artists and send in stories and pictures based on our themes.

Join us in this writing and drawing contest!

A new challenge is posted every month. On the first day of the challenge, we announce a new theme on this site. You then have two months to create your entry, which has to be finished when you send it in.

After the deadline of the contest, the voting period begins. Based on the number of entries, it lasts for two or more weeks. The winners are usually announced a day or two after the end of the voting. Teitho remains one of the last prompt-based, independent, Tolkien fan-fiction/fan art monthly contests. Full contest guidelines are here.

Our prompt this month is Legacy.

What impact do past events have on the present? What traits, ideals or beliefs impact an individual’s followers or descendants? What do we leave for those who come after?

Legacies can be both positive and negative, as we see in the house of Fëanor.

It can be steadfastness, as we see in Fingolfin and his descendants.

An individual can leave a legacy, but so can a community or an entire culture—what legacy did Numenor leave to those who escaped the destruction?

It could be a written legacy like the Red Book of Westmarch, started by Bilbo Baggins to recount his quest for Erebor, then added to over the years to become much more than a simple diary.

A legacy may also be an object, an item passed down from individual to individual: a bequest, a sword, a ring, a property, an oath.

What will you choose to explore using this prompt? We look forward to your stories and art this month!

Please submit by November 30, 2024 to teitho.contest@gmail.com

October challenge at tolkienshortfanworks

The October challenge at tolkienshortfanworks has been posted to the Dreamwidth community.

The October Challenge is inspired by the Golden Shovel form.

Below you will find three stanzas of poetry by Tolkien.
Take a line or several lines from one or more of these stanzas.
Use the words of the line or lines you chose in your piece in the same order that they come in Tolkien's poem.
Use all the words of your line(s) in the same order, but fill the gaps between with new material, as you like, with no other restrictions. Your piece need not be on the same subject and can be in an entirely different tone or mode!
You can challenge yourself to use the chosen words at the beginning or end of sentences or lines of verse (if writing a poem), if you would like, but this is not required.


A)
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
(from: The Hobbit)

B)
Ere iron was found or tree was hewn,
When young was mountain under moon;
Ere ring was made, or wrought was woe,
It walked the forests long ago
(from: The Lord of the Rings)

C)
Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three,
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing sea?
Seven stars and seven stones
And one white tree.
(from: The Lord of the Rings)

If you want to know more about the Golden Shovel, a poetic form invented by Terrance Hayes, you can find it explained here:
https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/golden-shovel-poetic-form

More details on these monthly challenges at the entry linked above.

New participants welcome (a Dreamwidth account is required) and we welcome combination with  prompts and challenges from other communities and sites.