Release Date 16 May 2023
Welcoming over 700 delegates across the two-day event, the 2021 Tolkien Society summer seminar was the highest attended event in the Society's history. It invited scholars to consider the role that diversity plays in Middle-earth's linguistic and literary make-up: how does he explore race, gender, sexuality, disability, class, religion and faith, and age? How do different fandoms receive his works? How can varying perspectives enrich our understanding of Arda? Tolkien and Diversity was the second of three seminars that the Tolkien Society hosted online in 2021, reaching over 1600 global delegates.
 
Published under the auspices of the Society's Peter Roe Memorial Fund, this proceedings features a collection of four papers delivered at the Tolkien Society 2021 summer seminar.
 
Introduction - Will Sherwood 
 
Desire of the ring: an Indian academic's adventures in her quest for the perilous realm - Sonali Arvind Chunodkar 
 
Translation as a means of representation and diversity in Tolkien's scholarship and fandom - Martha Celis-Mendoza 
(Original Spanish Version) La traducción como medio de representación y diversidad en los estudios sobre Tolkien entre la academia y los fans - Martha Celis-Mendoza 
 
How Queer Atheists, Agnostics, and Animists Engage with Tolkien's Legendarium - Robin Anne Reid 
 
Stars Less Strange: An Analysis of Fanfiction and Representation within the Tolkien Fan Community - Dawn Walls-Thumma 
 
Hidden Visions: Iconographies of Alterity in Soviet Bloc Illustrations for The Lord of the Rings - Joel Merriner 
 
"Something Mighty Queer": Destabilizing Cishetero Amatonormativity in the Works of Tolkien - Danna Petersen-Deeprose 
 
The Invisible Other: Tolkien's Dwarf-Women and the 'Feminine Lack' - Sara Brown 
 
The Lossoth: Indigeneity, Representation, and Antiracism - Nicholas Birns
 
"The Burnt Hand Teaches Most About Fire": Applying Trauma Exposure and Ecological Frameworks to Narratives of Displacement and Resettlement Across Elven Cultures in Tolkien's Middle-earth - V. Elizabeth King 
 
The Problem of Pain: Portraying Physical Disability in the Fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien - Clare Moore