To find out about the next seminar, visit our Summer Seminar 2023 page.

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 meant that we were joined by over 1600 attendees from over 52 countries. After the seminar, all paper recordings from the seminars are uploaded onto the Tolkien Society’s YouTube channel.

Afterwards, recordings of the papers are uploaded onto our YouTube channel and papers are often collected together in a single publication and made available to the wider community. These papers are published under the auspices of the Peter Roe Memorial Fund and, to date, there have been 21 Peter Roe Books published, with the latest being Twenty-first Century Receptions of Tolkien. You can order Peter Roe books via our Sales page.

Previous Seminars

Year	Location	Date	Subject
2022	The Hilton Leeds City and Online	3 July	Tolkien and the Gothic
2021 (Autumn)	Online	6 November	Translating and Illustrating Tolkien
2021 (Summer)	Online	3-4 July	Tolkien and Diversity
2021 (Winter)	Online	13 February	Twenty-first Century Receptions of Tolkien
2020	Online	4 July	Adapting Tolkien
2019	Replaced by Tolkien 2019 conference
2018	The Hilton Leeds City	1 July	Tolkien the Pagan? Reading Middle-earth through a Spiritual Lens
2017	The Hilton Leeds City	2 July	Poetry and Song
2016	The Hilton Leeds City	3 July	Life, Death, and Immortality
2015	The Hilton Leeds City	4 July	One Hundred Years of Middle-earth
2014	ExCel Centre, London	14 August	Incorporated into WorldCon
2013	Tullie House, Carlisle	20 July	Tolkien’s Landscapes
2012	Incorporated into Return of the Ring conference
2011	Bar Convent, York	30 July	Tolkien’s Trees
2010	Pascoe Vale Tavern, Melbourne	28 August	Tolkien’s Odysseys – Middle-earth and Beyond
2010	Birmingham Central Library	26 June	Tolkien & Birmingham
2009	Sir John Soame’s Museum, London	27 June	Journeys & Destinations
2008	Roehampton University	28 June	Freedom, Fate and Choice in the Middle-earth writings of J.R.R. Tolkien
2007	NSW Writsers’ Centre, Sydney	25 August	Tolkien Down Under: The Art of Science and Magic
2007	Wolfson Court, Cambridge	16 June	Women in Tolkien
2006	Assembly House, Norwich	22 July	Politics and Middle-earth
2005	Replaced by Tolkien 2005 conference
2004	St Martin’s College, Carlisle	17 July	Tolkien influenced and influencing
2003	Farnham Museum	7 June	Drawn from the History of Middle-earth
2002	Whitby Museum	6 July	Dramatising Fantasy: Adapting books for stage and screen
2001	Not held
2000	Bristol	1 July	The Change of Ages
1999	Wolfson Court, Cambridge	12 June	Tolkien, A Mythology for England?
1998	Not held
1997	Manchester University	21 June	The ways of creative mythologies – imagined worlds and their makers
1996	The George Hotel, Colchester	15 June	Tolkien, the Sea, and Scandinavia
1995	The Guildhall, Leicester	23-5 June	Travel and Communications in Tolkien’s Worlds
1994	The Miramar Hotel, Bournemouth	11 June	Tolkien, The Monsters, The Middle-ages, and Middle-earth
1993	Queen’s Hall Art Centre, Hexham	25-7 June	Tolkien: Art, Archaeology, and Culture
1992	Incorporated into 1992 Tolkien Centenary Conference
1991	Welsh Folk Museum, Cardiff	15 June	Open subject. With Terry Pratchett.
1990	David Baxter Centre, Milton Keynes	2 June	The First and Second Ages
1989	The Friary, Beverley	24 June	Leaves from the Tree: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Shorter Fiction

Before the seminars, the Society held a series of annual workshops:

Year	Location	Date	Subject
1988	Dept of Earth Sciences, Cambridge	11 June	Tolkien and Romanticism
1987	Church House, London	16-7 May	Celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Hobbit
1986	Leicester Centre for Adult Education	22 March	J.R.R. Tolkien, Scholar and Storyteller