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September 2024 Call for Papers and Proposals

Tolkien Society Hybrid Seminar 2024: Tolkien as Heritage

The Tolkien Society Seminar is a short conference of both researcher-led and non-academic presentations on a specific theme pertaining to Tolkien scholarship.The Society held three seminars in 2021 (Twenty-first Century Receptions of Tolkien, Tolkien and Diversity, and Translating and Illustrating Tolkien) and their online setting has seen increased interest with over 700 attendees from 52 countries at ‘Tolkien and Diversity’. After the seminar, all paper recordings from the seminars are uploaded onto the Tolkien Society’s YouTube channel. We are delighted to run hybrid seminars where delegates can enjoy discussions on Tolkien in person and online.

The Tolkien Society is excited to partner with Tolkinovo društvo Srbije (the Tolkien Society of Serbia) and Centar za Muzeologiju I Heritologiju (the Centre for Museology and Heritology, the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade). Saturday 7th December will be held in person at the University of Belgrade, with papers delivered in Serbian – you can submit paper and panel proposals in Serbian for the 7th here. Sunday 8th December will be online and hosted by The Tolkien Society on Zoom – you can submit paper and panel proposals for the 8th below. The seminar will be co-run by Mina Lukić Gunner (Tolkinovo društvo Srbije) and Will Sherwood (The Tolkien Society’s Education Secretary).

We invite paper (20 minutes) and panel (60 minute) proposals on Tolkien’s work as heritage, asking how the phenomena analysed contribute to the affirmation, preservation, popularisation, and transmission of his legacy, securing its presence in global or local cultural memory.

Paper and panel proposals may address but are in no way limited to:

• Institutions and organizations that take care of Tolkien’s works and promote their research and presentation (e.g., Tolkien Estate, libraries, universities, fan associations)
• Memorials and monuments, sites of memory, commemorations
• Conventions and fan gatherings
• Collecting
• Internet activities (e.g. social networks, forums, blogs, websites, podcasts)
• Multimedia interpretations and re-imaginings (e.g. adaptations, dramatisations, artworks, fan fiction, games)
• Translations
• Tolkien’s influence on other authors and creatives

We invite paper proposals no more than 300 words, for a 20-minute paper with 5 minutes of questions. Panel proposals should be no more than 500 words, for a 60 minute window.

The call for paper’s deadline is midnight Saturday 14th September 2024. You can submit your proposal here. Will and Mina will contact you after the deadline.

See the full call for papers for the Tolkien Society Seminar 2024 here.

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.

September challenge at tolkienshortfanworks on Dreamwidth

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

The thematic challenge is: wave. 

The relevance of wave imagery to Tolkien's Legendarium is obvious. But the wave need not  be sea water or even water: wave patterns like plants waving in the wind and more abstract waves, for instance, in society or history, or even people waving their hands, all count for this.

The formal challenge is: in-universe commentary. This can be done in various ways, for instance:

- Write a text composed in the First Age and add a footnote by an editor in the Third Age (or similar).
- Have a teacher or parent explain a canonical piece of lore familiar to us to their children or students from their point of view.
- Someone adds a postscript to a letter written by someone else, which includes a comment on what was said above.

These prompts can be filled separately and freely combined with other prompts where the other challenge or exchange permits it, such as the SWG challenges. 

More details on the challenge at the linked post.

New participants welcome (a Dreamwidth account is needed).

Silmarillion Kinkmeme: Prompt a Day in September

• the kinkmeme has 326 prompts while September has only 30 days, so please don't be disappointed if your prompt doesn't get promoted
• I will post the prompt regardless of existing fills
• I will add the prompts posted after September 1 to the file
• unfortunately, I won't be able to include Dreamwidth-only prompts, so if you want your prompt to be included, please crosspost it to Ao3 or let me know and I'll do it

Links

• Silm Kinkmeme on Dreamwidth | Tumblr | AO3
• Rules and FAQ (Dreamwidth) | Rules and FAQ (Tumblr) | AO3-Specific FAQ

Sindar Week 2024

A Tolkien event week for the Sindar, the Grey-Elves, from the Years of the Trees to the Third Age!

@sindarweek is a fandom event week celebrating the Sindar! It will be running from Wednesday September 4th 2024 to Tuesday September 10th 2024.

Guidelines and FAQs can be found here.

Prompts

Prompts are not mandatory, just inspirational.

• Day 1: Inventions
• Day 2: Folklore
• Day 3: Objects
• Day 4: Nature & Environments
• Day 5: Minor & Forgotten Characters
• Day 6: The Great Journey
• Day 7: Youth and Childhood

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Collaboration 2024

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Collaboration is a fandom event meant to celebrate the wonderful world of The Hobbit - be it the film adaptation or the book, we want to spread the love for our favorite characters, places, and scenarios.

This is a HOBBIT event, which means we are focused on the characters/events focused around The Hobbit - this is not a Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, or Rings of Power event, though mentions and vague ties to these are allowed, so long as the sole focus is of that of The Hobbit.

After sign ups are closed, the moderators will go through the responses/answers provided and work on pairing people up into groups of two.

This year we will provide you three prompts/ideas based on your responses of what you’re willing/wanting to create, and you and your partner will discuss together of how you want to proceed. See the FAQ for requirements for various fanwork types.

• Sept 1 - Sign-ups open
• Sept 15 - Sign-ups close
• Sept 22 - Partners/Prompts Assigned
• Sept 29 - First Check In
• November 17 - Final Check In/Requests for Extensions due (if you don’t ask for an extension by this date, you don’t get one. This is also your last chance to drop out.)
• December 1 - Projects Due
• Dec 8 - Extensions due
• Dec 15 - Reveals

Additional Links and Information

Ainur Week 2024

Ainur Week will run September 1-9, 2024 on Tumblr. We have two sets of prompts this year: daily character prompts, and general prompts that don't apply to a particular day. You can mix and match the prompts, or focus on one set if you prefer!

Prompts can be found here.

Tolkien OC Week 2024

A fandom event for OCs and underdeveloped characters in Tolkien's world!

This event celebrates both characters of Tolkien's world and our own characters that need more love, by creating and reblogging all kind of fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fanvideos, fancrafts, headcanons, playlists, edits, moodboards etc.

The event will take place between 25th August - 31st August 2024 on Tumblr for the fourth year running.

NSFW text entries are allowed and we’ll tag them accordingly when we reblog them, but please put them behind a “read more”.

We'll also be tracking the tag #tolkienocweek during this week!

Schedule

Day 1 (25th August): World Building

Create a fanwork about an original character, and use them as a jumping off point for worldbuilding. Share a dwarf from the far side of Rhun, consider the existence of an Aina before the creation of Arda, explore Rivendell from the point of view of an outsider, or tell us about the underground punk subculture of Gondolin.

Day 2 (26th August): Canon-OC Relationships

This year, it’s not just about romance. Today, explore a relationship between your OC and a canon character. Your character could be a lover or spouse of someone canonical, lf course, but they could also be a friend, sibling, teacher, servant, fan, or even rival!

Day 3 (27th August): Alternate Universes

Share an OC who isn’t canon compliant at all. Maybe you want to add a fourteenth member of Thorin’s company or give a reborn Celebrimbor children with a surviving and reformed Sauron. Or, maybe you want to do a crossover with your Star Wars OC or let your self-insert narrate a coffee shop AU. Go wild!

Day 4 (28th August): Gaps and Ghosts

Create a fanwork based upon a character that Tolkien either thought up and abandoned, such as Odo Took or the characters of The New Shadow. Or, create someone he missed creating in the first place, like… um… just about anyone’s mother.

Day 5 (29th August): Non-Humanoid Characters

Middle Earth isn't just elves, Men, hobbits, and dwarves. Today, share a character who is something different entirely: an animal, a dragon, a Maia who doesn't take humanoid form, an ent or huron, or a creature of your own invention.

Day 6 (30th August): Background Characters

This prompt is all about people who are in the background of the action: the low-ranking soldiers, the servants, and the ordinary people living in extraordinary times. Or maybe you want someone who isn't so ordinary, like an advisor in the Council of Elrond who never made it onto the page, or one of the Maiar who sank the Feanorians on the stolen boats. Show us their view of the action!

Day 7 (31st August): Freeform

Did we miss something? Do you have an OC that doesn’t fit into any day, or did you want to do a second fanwork for one of the days? Today, create and share whatever you want, as long as it has to do with original or abandoned characters!

Since we want to celebrate creations about neglected characters all year long, the mods will occasionally reblog posts and fancreations about OCs and underdeveloped characters. If you would like to see your post on our blog, you're very welcome to tag tolkienocweek. Since tumblr's tagging system is often being faulty, don't hesitate to message us, too!

We are looking forward to see and share all the awesome work you come up with!

Eönwë Week 2024

We are pleased to announce the coming of Eönwë Week, a fandom event dedicated to our favourite Herald. The event will run from August 12th to 18th 2024 on Tumblr.

Prompts

August 12th: Genesis | Air | Almaren
August 13th: Friendships | Herald | Valinor
August 14th: War | Celeg Aithorn | Beleriand
August 15th: Romance | Mercy | Taniquetil
August 16th: Lost Tales | He Of The Sun | Son of Manwë
August 17th: Eagles | Duty | Noldor
August 18th: Freeform

Rules

1. Have fun!
2. This event should not be the vehicle to characters hate, bigotry, racism, transphobia and other less savoury behaviours. This is a safe event for lgbtqia+ people and behaviours reflecting any type of threats against this community will be blocked without any tolerance. it’s 2024, get over yourself.
   
   The mods hold the rights to arbitrarily refuse someone’s participation to the event following that user’s behaviour toward others in the fandom.
3. Nsfw / dark content / dead dove are accepted but should be tagged properly.
4. No AI generated works will be accepted, including ai generated art, writing, photo manipulation etc.
5. Prompts are here as a general guidance, you are free to interpret them as you want.
6. Respect other users’ entries. If something is not to your liking you are not entitled to let it known. Simply scroll down. it is that easy.
7. Tag your entry with #eonweweek or mention this blog in your post to be reblogged.

Find the event's FAQ here.

Teitho August/September Contest: Do you remember ...?

Our prompt for August/September is “Do you remember . . .”

This prompt can be used for any character, any book, any timeframe in Tolkien’s work! We can’t wait to see what memories you will use for your stories and art this month!

Will you have your characters think back on good times or bad? Difficult days or ones of joy? A simple day or a fraught one?

Is it a thought going back to the Light of the Two Trees? The first sunrise over Beleriand?

The shadows of Menegroth? The caves of Nargothrond? The Halls of Theoden? Sunlight on a river?

Or perhaps three stone Trolls? A raven? Or the taste of strawberries on a spring day in the Shire?

Please do remember to submit your story/art for this prompt to teitho.contest@gmail.com by September 30, 2024!

Learn more about the Teitho contest guidelines here.

August challenge at tolkienshortfanworks on Dreamwidth

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

The thematic challenge is: magic trees.

This could be any variety and degree of enchantment, powers or sentience: the Trees of Valinor, the White Tree, Old Man Willow, Huorns, Mirkwood, etc.

The formal challenge is: call and response.

This is essentially the idea that there is a leader or lead voice that makes the calls and a group that responds, whether in music and song, in poetry, or in dialogue and maybe other forms of prose.

Typical for call and response are all kinds of working songs from all over the world, choral music with solo voices, and some religious traditions. Think also of cheerleading and political speech-making and any kind of gathering where someone is trying to whip up a mood.

But feel free to adapt in any way you like. At a pinch, your chorus doing responses can be a group of one and you could have just two participants!

 Either prompt can be filled independently of each other and combined with other challenges that allow that, such as the SWG monthly challenges.

More details at the linked post.

New participants welcome.