Updated: NEPCA (Northeast PCA) Conference CFP
Oct. 9-11, 2025, Online, Updated Proposal Deadline July 31, 2025, 5:00 PM EST
ETA July 11, 2025:
The submission deadline for the 2025 Annual NEPCA Conference has been extended to July 31st 5 pm EST.
The conference will be held Thursday, 9 October, to Saturday, 11 October, 2025.
You can submit your proposal here.
NEPCA announced a few weeks ago that they have capped the registration for the conference at US $25.00 for everyone; they also have scholarships/grants available.
The Call for Papers for the 2025 NEPCA Conference has just gone out: the conference is online this year. I can highly recommend it as a conference: besides being in the fall (a lot of the Tolkien or related conferences are in the spring), the cost is reasonable (and they have a number of free scholarships). They are also welcoming and open to a wide range of teachers, scholars, students, and professionals in related fields. So it is a very good “first-timer” conference.
They have a new website this year which is quite spiffy!
Here are the subject areas (like many conferences, they develop areas chaired by interested members, allowing for more coherence in the sessions. Tolkien scholarship is multi-disciplinary and varied enough that people could submit to any of several different areas: Digital Media and Gaming Cultures; Fans, Fandoms and Celebrity Studies; Science Fiction and Fantasy; Literature and Popular Culture; Storytelling and Narrative, and others! It all depends what sort of approach and topic you are presenting on. I’ll probably be applying to the “Fans, Fandoms, and Celebrity” studies since my Web of Women project is a reception study (even though I’ll be talking about some of Tolkien’s female characters, it will be in the context of fans’ (including my own) transformative works and reparative readings!).
Like other conferences, they allow people to submit an individual abstract for a single-paper presentation (which the area chair will group with others for a paper session), but you may also organize a full panel session (3-4 thematically linked presentations), or a proposal for a roundtable (4-6 people, more focused and interactive). See their conference page for more information about what to do and how to submit your abstract. Lots of fun possibilities!
Also like many academic organizations, they award two prizes for outstanding presentations by graduate students at the conference.
Hope to see you there!