What a fabulous call this has been! The annual Luna CfP 2021 has gathered scholars, fans and researchers from all the world to bring you a variety of papers on many Tolkien characters outside of the Fellowship of the Ring.
If you've missed it, this was the Call 2021:
"Writers are invited to engage with a fictional character of choice from any of Tolkien’s works who is not part of The Lord of the Rings’ Fellowship. Though they can be characters of LOTR.
Friends, foes or neutral; dead or undead; divine beings, beasts (of the mythical or animal variety), or other. We welcome all. Bill the Pony, though undoubtedly an honorary member of the Fellowship at least according to Sam, is - for our purposes - fair game.
The purpose of this Call for Papers aims, on the one hand, at bringing to the fore more of Tolkien’s characters who do not receive the same attention as the Fellowship. On the other hand, we want to tackle these less appreciated characters in new ways, and in the light of a contemporary sensibility."
Now, although I was sorely disappointed not to receive a paper on Bill the Pony, I had a fabulous time with all the submission. Unfortunately we couldn't consider everything, but a huge thank you should go to all the writers who did submit.
And now, let me introduce you to our contributors and their papers. Let there be dragons!
Amie Angèle Brochu (Canada) “Steward of Trees and Forests: Treebeard’s Symbolic Role in Folklore, Environmental Protection and Eco-Critical Awareness”
Scott Chaussée (USA) “The Last Prince of Cardolan: Memory and mediation in the mortuary archaeology of Middle-earth”
Catherine A. Coundjeris (USA) “Éowyn as Light Bearer”
A J Dalton (UK) “What is so fabulous about Smaug?”
Brendan Dyer (USA) “Glorfindel: Tolkien’s Intertextual Link Between The First And The Third Age”
Jyrki Korpua (Finland) “Master of Fate, yet by fate mastered” – Tolkien’s Túrin Turambar and Kalevala’s Kullervo” Elise Caemasache McKenna (USA) “The Dyscatastrophe of Túrin Turambar” Angela P. Nicholas (UK) “Finrod Felagund: His Life, Influence and Legacy” Enrico Spadaro & Mauro Toninelli (Italy) “The Gaffer: between cabbages and potatoes” Renée Vink (Netherlands) “Tal-Elmar and the Unrepresented Natives of Middle-earth”
Dawn Walls-Thumma (USA) “Cartography of a Character: On (Re)Writing Nerdanel”
The book will be out in summer 2022, and as always, you can follow updates on our monthly newsletter.
There will be more details about the papers and the contributors, in the coming months.