CFP: Secondary Believers, Secondary Worlds:
Tolkien and Religion in the Twenty-First Century
Deadline to submit a proposal: Friday, September 8, 2023
Co-sponsored by The Tolkien Society and the Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic, this free online conference is scheduled for Sunday, November 26.
Given my in-progress atheists, agnostics, and animist readers of Tolkien project, I am beyond thrilled to see this CFP (and will be submitting a proposal as soon as I can dig my way out from under the current To Do List)! I know both the organizers (Will Sherwood and Tom Emmanuel), so I know it will be a fantastic event.
I have included the information on my updated Online Conference page, but I wanted to highlight the information in more detail in a dedicated post!
And did I mention it will be not only online but FREE!
The Tolkien Society invites abstract submissions of no more than 300 words, for a 20-minute paper and 5 minutes of questions. Paper proposals should be submitted here. The deadline for submissions is the end of the day, Friday 8th September 2023.
(NOTE 1: Both sponsors are in the U.K. so the deadline is “end of the day” in British Summer Time!)
[NOTE 2: the link in "here" at the webpage is, at the time I am posting this newsletter, leading to a "this page not found" page; I have reported it to the organizers, and I'm sure they'll fix it. I will update link if necessary.] ETA: Link is good as of June 16!
Fifty years on from Tolkien’s death, as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films celebrate their twentieth anniversary and Amazon Prime’s The Rings of Power draws in new fans, Tolkien’s audience has never been wider nor more diverse. This presents Tolkien scholarship with an opportunity to bring varied and underrepresented perspectives on Tolkien and religion into conversation with longstanding currents in the field, thereby enriching our understanding of religious plurality in Tolkien’s secondary world and in our primary world as well.
This seminar welcomes fresh and innovative treatments of the generative interactivity between Tolkien's fiction, Tolkien's faith, and the faith (or lack thereof) of the readers who draw deep wells of meaning from his tales of Middle-earth. Papers may address but are in no way limited to the following topics:
• Underexplored Christian perspectives on the legendarium
• Reading the legendarium through non-Christian or nonreligious lenses
• Parallels between the legendarium and other faith traditions
• Tolkien in conversation with other religious thinkers
• Religious belief and practice in Middle-earth
• Critical approaches to faith in Tolkien's fiction
• Tolkien's non-Christian religious influences
• Tolkien's historical religious milieu
• Reception of spiritual themes in Tolkien's fiction
• Sub-creation and secondary belief
Hope to see you there!