Tolkien Studies Area Sessions
Popular Culture Association, Chicago, 27-30 March, 2024
Below is the session information (paper sessions, a workshop, a roundtable, a business meeting, and two planned social hours) for the Tolkien Studies Area. These sessions are scheduled as part of the 2024 Popular Culture Association Conference (f2f only this year).
TOLKIEN STUDIES I: RACISM, FASCISM, RELIGION & ATHEISM
Moderator: Robin Anne Reid
“Free Orcs and Black Fingon: Disrupting the Racial Hierarchy of Middle-earth Through Revisionary Works” Bianca Beronio
“‘Gandalf Lives!’: The Italian, Neo-fascist Campaign for Middle-earth” Craig Franson
“Secondary Believers, Secondary Worlds: A Tolkienian Theory of Fandom and Religion” Tom Emanuel
"’Really I'm an atheist, but not the kind that yells at people’: Atheist Readers of J.R.R. Tolkien” Robin Anne Reid
TOLKIEN STUDIES II: “THE FALL OF ARTHUR,” THE MYSTERY OF GALADRIEL, AND TWO ANTI-WAR PLAYS
Moderator: Robin Anne Reid
“'Mirkwood's Margin Under Mountain Shadows:' Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur and Arthurian Ecocriticism” Amber Lehning
“Galadriel: Lodestar of the Legendarium” Constance Wagner and Laura Grabowski
“’Giving Up Their Dead’: ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son’ and A Sleep of Prisoners” Janet Brennan Croft
TOLKIEN STUDIES III: TEACHING TOLKIEN WITH EQUITY WORKSHOP
Moderator: Robin Anne Reid
“Teaching Tolkien with Equity” Bianca Beronio
TOLKIEN STUDIES IV: SOCIAL HOUR
TOLKIEN STUDIES V: QUEER THEORY, DISABILITY THEORY, AND THE THEORY OF “ON FAIRY-STORIES”
Moderator: Robin Anne Reid
“Bi Wife Energy: An Exploration of Faramir and Eowyn's Queercoded Relationship” Alicia Fox-Lenz
“Cripping Morgoth: Exploring the Possibilities of Disability in Tolkien's Arch-Villain” Clare Moore
“From Mind to Mind: the Graphical Evolution of Final Fantasy through Tolkien’s ‘On Fairy-stories’” Cameron Bourquein
“Recovery? Escape? Consolation? Tolkien in His Many Iterations as a Balm for Burnout” Carol Bernard
TOLKIEN STUDIES VI: CON-CREATION (Roundtable)
Moderators: Robin Anne Reid & Cameron Bourquein
Participants: Cait Coker, Tom Emmanuel, and Clare Moore
TOLKIEN STUDIES VII: BUSINESS MEETING
Moderator: Robin Anne Reid
TOLKIEN STUDIES VIII: SOCIAL HOUR
To see an overview of the scholarship that has been presented at the PCA Tolkien Studies Area since 2014 (when the group was founded), go to Tolkien Studies, PCA!
If you think you’d like to present your work at the conference some year, drop me an email, and I’ll put your email on my emailing list (robinareid AT fastmail DOT com).