Kalamazoo 2016 Tolkien Events schedule

So, the program book for this year's Medieval Congress is now out, and as usual there's a good amount of interesting-sounding Tolkien on the schedule. Here are the ones I spotted:

THURSDAY   10 AM   FETZER 1040

Session 11   

Fathering, Fostering, Translating, and Creating in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien

Sponsor: History Dept., Texas A&M Univ.–Commerce

Organizer: Judy Ann Ford, Texas A&M Univ.–Commerce

Presider: Anne Reaves, Marian Univ.

Medieval Fostering in the First and Third Ages of Middle-earth: Elrond as Fóstri and Fóstr-son

Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State Univ.

A Stylistic Analysis of Fatherhood and Fostering in The Silmarillion

Robin Anne Reid, Texas A&M Univ.–Commerce

Tolkien’s Beowulf: A Translation of Scholar and Poet

Yvette Kisor, Ramapo College

Imagined: Tolkien in the Mind of God

Skyler King, College of the Desert

THURSDAY   1.30 PM   FETZER 1040

Session 58

Tolkien and Beowulf

Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo

Organizer: Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ.

Presider: Andrew Higgins, Independent Scholar

“A Tight Fitt”: Strategies of Condensation in The Lay of Beowulf

John R. Holmes, Franciscan Univ. of Steubenville

Tolkien’s “Freawaru and Ingeld”: A Love Story?

Christopher T. Vaccaro, Univ. of Vermont

The Christian Singer in Tolkien’s Beowulf

Michael D. Miller, Aquinas College

Tolkien’s Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary as a Teaching Text

James L. Baugher, East Tennessee State Univ.

THURSDAY   3.30 PM   FETZER 1040

Session 107

In Honor of Verlyn Flieger (A Roundtable)

Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo
Organizer: Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ.
Presider: John D. Rateliff, Independent Scholar

Tolkien’s “On Fairy-stories” as a theory of literature

Curtis Gruenler, Hope College

The Well and the Book: Flieger and Tolkien on “the Past in the Past”

Deborah Salo, Univ. of Arkansas–Fayetteville/Arkansas Archeological Survey

So Many Wonders: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight according to Tolkien and Flieger

Amy Amendt-Raduege, Whatcom Community College

“Linguistic Ghosts”: Anglo-Saxon Poetry as Tolkien’s Tether between Past and Present

Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State Univ.

An Elf by Any Other Name: Naming, Language, and Loss in Tolkien’s Legendarium

Benjamin S. W. Barootes, McGill Univ.

Friday, May 13   8.30 AM

Plenary Lecture

Bernhard East Ballroom

Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America

How We Read J. R. R. Tolkien Reading Grendel’s Mother
Jane Chance (Rice Univ.)

FRIDAY   10 AM  BERNHARD 209

Session 219

Tolkien and Invented Languages

Sponsor: Tolkien at Kalamazoo
Organizer: Brad Eden, Valparaiso Univ.

Presider: Brad Eden

From Goldogrin to Sindarin, or, How Ilkorin Supplanted the “Sweet Tongue of the Gnomes”

Eileen Marie Moore, Cleveland State Univ.

Early Explorers and Practicioners of a Shared “Secret Vice”

Andrew Higgins, Independent Scholar

“Art Words”: Tolkien’s “Secret Vice” Manuscripts and Radical Linguistic Experimentation

Dimitra Fimi, Cardiff Metropolitan Univ.

Tolkien’s Concept of “Native Language” and the English and Welsh Papers at the Bodleian Library

Yoko Hemmi, Keio Univ.

SATURDAY   10 AM   FETZER 1060

Session 345

Asterisk Tolkien: Filling Medieval Lacunae

Sponsor: Dept. of Religious Studies and Philosophy, The Hill School

Organizer: John Wm. Houghton, Hill School

Presider: John Wm. Houghton

The “Lost” Language of the Hobbits

Deidre Dawson, Independent Scholar

“To Recall Forgotten Gods from Their Twilight”: Tolkien, Machen, and Lovecraft

John D. Rateliff, Independent Scholar

“Backdreaming” Beowulf’s Scyld Scefing Legend

Anna Smol, Mount St. Vincent Univ.

Bred in Mockery

Michael Wodzak, Viterbo Univ.

SATURDAY   NOON   BERNHARD 212

Tolkien at Kalamazoo

Business Meeting

It's not listed in the catalogue, but thanks to Anna Smol's posting last month of Tolkien events from the draft schedule, here's information on the one off-campus event, TOLKIEN UNBOUND, which is being held at Kalamazoo College's music recital hall on Saturday afternoon, starting about 2 pm and running for about three hours. This is actually two events in one: the first a Readers' Theate performance of Tolkien's Kalevala, the second  Eileen Moore's performance of "Maidens of Middle-earth", part six.

In addition to the all-Tolkien events, there's presentation on "Teaching with Lord of the Rings Online" by Carol L. Robinson, as part of the Digitally Teaching the Middle Ages: Case Studies (A Poster Session)  (Thursday 3.30 PM).    Smol also points out a stray Le Guin session: "Medievalism and the End(s) of Empire in 1960s Science Fiction: Frank Herbert's Dune and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness" by Scott Wells, California State Univ. -- Los Angeles; this is part of a session called In Fashions Reminiscent: The Overlapping Objects, Discourses, and Ideas of the Sixties and the Middle Ages, being held Saturday at 3.30.

It's not Tolkien, but of related interest is the TALES AFTER TOLKIEN group's session, being held Saturday at 1.30.  I've enjoyed their sessions in the past, but this year the whole panel's devoted to R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones, so I'll probably take a pass.

And then there are the two sessions on C. S. Lewis organized by the folks from Taylor University. Last year I skipped the Tales After Tolkien panel to attend the CSL one, and regretted it -- though I have to say the C.S.L.'s bestiary topic is as good one. And the second CSL session includes presenters from Wheaton and from Fayetteville, (one of) my old alma mater.  In any case, they're being held Saturday at 10 and Saturday at 1.30 respectively.

There's also a stray Lewis piece, Medieval Fantasy and the Neo-Victorian Child in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia by Heather L. N. Hess, Univ. of Tennessee–Knoxville that's part of the  Childhood/Innocence in Victorian Medievalism session (Saturday, 1.30)

Of course as always I'll have to leave time to prowl the book-room (I'm hoping the Palgrave booth has Williamson's book on fantasy) and talk Tolkien with Tolk folk, of whom there'll be many in attendance.

Finally, I ought to stress what a big deal Chance's plenary lecture is. To put it in context, there are 550 sessions at this year's conference. By contrast, hers is one of only two Plenary Lectures: events against which no other events will be scheduled. From what I hear Chance is the single person most responsible for establishing the TOLKIEN AT KALAMAZOO track, so it's good to see her so honored, and impressive to see Tolkien so prominently featured. 

My own contributions, as shown above, will be the chair the roundtable in honor of Verlyn Flieger (session 107; 3.30 on Thursday) -- a congenial task if ever there was one. I'm also presenting my paper on Nodens as part of session 345 (Saturday at 10), where once again I'll be in good company. I'm looking forward to it, and to all the presentations by other Tolkienists during what once again looks to be a v. crowded weekend.

--JDR

P.S.

here's the link to the whole program book

http://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/events/sessions

and here's another to Anna Smol's blog post

http://annasmol.net/2016/01/23/tolkien-medievalism-at-kzoo-2016-sneak-peek/