The Tales After Tolkien Society is pleased to announce that we have FOUR offerings (three co-sponsored) for the 2027 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo! Two of the sessions have been given hybrid slots and the other two will be online. Please see below for the names and descriptions of each session:
The first session is a paper panel titled A Porlockian Perspective: Interruptions in Post-Tolkien Medievalist Works with the following description: The International Porlock Society, long meeting at the ICMS, is dedicated to the study and practice of academic interruption. While the Porlock Society focused its attentions on the works of Sidney and Spenser (himself an early medievalist), it is the case that interruption abounds, both in medieval literatures (witness Arthurian legend) and in the medievalist and neomedievalist media that emerge from them. The proposed session investigates the instances, forms, and functions of interruption in works of post-Tolkien neo/medievalist literatures and other media. This will be a hybrid session.
The second session, also a paper panel, is co-sponsored with Tolkien at Kalamazoo and is titled Continued Lessons from the Professor: Borrowings from Tolkien, 2020+ with the following description: The stated goal of The Tales after Tolkien Society is the investigation of medievalism in popular culture; it has in its very name a commitment to conducting those investigations through the lens of Tolkien and his works. With the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent upheavals, it may well be that the focus which this lens offers has changed. Papers for the session should look at shifts in use of Tolkien’s works, sources, and methods in the years 2020 and following, speaking to the “after” portion of the Society’s name with particular emphasis. This will be an online session.
The third session is a roundtable co-sponsored with the Lone Medievalist and is titled Medievalism Outside Academe (A Roundtable) with the following description: Most faculty are contingent. The numbers of contingent faculty are dwarfed by those who, after spending years adjuncting, sought other careers yet still feel called to intellectual life. More yet did not pursue lives in academe but still have insights into the medieval, medievalist, and neomedievalist, as well as how they function. The proposed session looks to present perspectives on the medieval, medievalist, and neomedievalist from outside traditional academic structures, calling back to Richard Utz’s ICMS 2015 plenary lecture: medievalist work began as an amateur endeavor. Bringing in nonprofessional, underrepresented, outside perspectives remains worth doing. This will be a hybrid session.
The fourth and final session is also a roundtable and is co-sponsored with the International Society for the Study of Medievalism (ISSM). It is titled "Will It Bardcore?": Explorations of Medievalist Music (A Roundtable) with the following description: During discussion at the 2026 ICMS session 'Off of the Printed Prose Page', Dr. Elizabeth Perry asked the question of various songs: “Will it bardcore?” Although offered partly in jest, the question prompts consideration of what bardcore is, really; what makes for “good” bardcore; what are representative examples of the genre; how the genre borrows from and interacts with Tolkien and other neo/medievalisms; and what purposes and functions are served by the genre? The proposed roundtable offers space for such considerations. This will be an online session.
While session numbers have not yet been posted to the conference site, you can find all our sessions here to submit abstracts to: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2027/prelim.cgi/Index/SponsorList~Tales%20after%20Tolkien%20Society
As always, we ask you to please share this call for papers around to anyone and everyone you believe may be interested. We would love to hear from you! Proposals from those typically excluded from formal academe are particularly welcome.
All abstract submissions are due no later than 15 September 2026 via Confex.
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