To find out about the next seminar, visit our 2023 Online Seminar 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 22 Peter Roe Books published, with the latest being Tolkien and Diversity. You can order Peter Roe books via our Sales page.
Previous Seminars
Year | Location | Date | Subject |
---|---|---|---|
2023 | The Hilton Leeds City and Online | 2 July | Númenor, the Mighty and Frail |
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 |