J.R.R. Tolkien in Central Europe

Edited Volume/Collective Monograph

Deadline for abstracts: 15 September 2021

Due in part to the success of the film adaptations, Tolkien, and by extension, fantasy has recently been rediscovered as a trending genre paradigm in Western literary and media scholarship. It is perceived as a conduit for underlying cultural ideas about world-building and historical nostalgia, transmediality, fandom and participatory culture as well as media convergence. Tolkien and the fantasy genre have seen an upsurge in post-socialist Central Europe as well, yet while the fandom is increasing, the scholarly study of Tolkien’s Central European legacy has lagged behind, with fantasy still being considered a niche genre situated on the popular end of the literary scale. This monograph proposes to correct this oversight, re-contextualize concepts and discourses about Tolkien’s reception in the post-socialist Central-European context, and examine the impact of his legacy on the re-positioning of fantasy in Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Polish popular culture.

This study would be both a historical investigation of the development of fantasy through national literatures of Central Europe, and a methodological reflection on the metamorphoses that ensure the survival and dissemination of Tolkien’s work.

Successful proposals will address (but are not limited to) the following:

• the reception of Tolkien’s work in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (both pre- and post- 1989, but with an emphasis on the contemporary situation)
• the ways Tolkien’s work has been perceived, disseminated, studied, and most recently, taught at universities in Central Europe
• translations of Tolkien’s work in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland
• what the shifting focus of literary scholarship towards popular genres reveals about forms of cultural import from Anglophone contexts between and across media / between and across literary fiction and screen media
• how fantasy’s world-building helps circulate ideas about racial, political and geographic otherness, domination and equity, and finally, mythological conceptions of good vs. evil, from communist times to the present
• what is the relationship between discourses of Tolkien’s work and the political, economic and cultural anxieties in post-socialist Central Europe, and what they reveal about the ways we negotiate local cultural legacies in relation to global ones
• the reflections of Tolkien’s legacy in contemporary Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Polish fantasy writing (across literary fiction and screen media)
• how manifestations of historical nostalgia, transmediality, fandom and participatory culture as well as media convergence mobilize Tolkien’s legacy in a Central-European context

Abstracts of 500 words with a brief author bio note (100 words) with ”Tolkien in Central Europe” in the subject line should be sent to the editors: Janka Kascakova at janka.kascakova@ku.sk and David Levente Palatinus at david.palatinus@ku.sk. The deadline for abstract submission is September 15, 2021. If accepted, the authors will be invited to present their preliminary findings and first versions of their papers at an online/hybrid conference to be held at the Catholic University in Ruzomberok, Slovakia in March 2022. The final chapters will be due on 31 May 2022. Please, note, the original papers/proposals can be written in one of the Central European languages (Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish) but will have to be translated into English for the monograph. However, we prefer papers in English. The book proposal will be submitted to an established international publishing house. Do get in touch with us if you have any questions.

Important Dates:
Submission of 500-word abstract: 15 September 2021
Decision to authors (abstract): 30 September 2021
Submission of first draft: 15 February 2022 (6000-8000 words)

Online/hybrid conference: mid-March 2022
First review: 30 April 2022
Submission of final papers: 31 May 2022