Drawn to the Edge
Signum University invites you to join us at the National Conference Center in Leesburg, VA.
“The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all.”
Galadriel in Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring
“Drawn to the Edge” can mean many things – a look at the borders that readers and authors find themselves drawn to over and over again, a deeper dive into literature that pushes the edge of boundaries, or even a look into stories that have readers peeking over the edge and into the void. Maybe the edge is where you walk into the unknown, and where the liminal begins, or is a means of escape.
What stories draw us to the edge? What is it about the tipping point of stories that intrigues us? Where is the edge between reality and fantasy in cosmic horror? What do we get out of seeing a character go as far as possible before either balancing, retreating or falling off of the edge? What is an edge in a story? Do the edges in a story shift? What side of the double-edged sword are you on?
“Life is a travelling to the edge of knowledge, then a leap taken. We cannot know beforehand. We are driven from behind, always as over the edge of a precipice.”
D. H. Lawrence, “The Crown”
There will be Papers, Panels, Workshops, and Creative Presentations about our theme of “Drawn to the Edge” in the following areas:
- Imaginative Literature including film and other media (ex: Howl’s Moving Castle, Dune, The Broken Earth Trilogy, Naruto, The Left Hand of Darkness, Star Trek, Kindred, The Vorkosigan Saga, Lord of the Rings, Watership Down, etc.)
- Tolkien and Inklings Studies
- Classic Literature from ancient times to the present
- Philology, Historical Linguistics, ConLangs and invented worlds
- interrelated topics such as superheroes, philosophy, media, and fandom studies
Guests of Honor
Sara Brown is Chair of the Language and Literature Faculty at Signum University, USA. She currently serves on the editorial board of Mallorn, the academic journal of the Tolkien Society, and is co-presenter on podcasts such as The Tolkien Experience, The Rings of Power Wrap-Up, Rings and Rituals, and The Prancing Pony. She won the Tolkien Society Award for Best Article in both 2023 and 2024, and is currently working on a book, Transgressive Tolkien, with Christopher Vaccaro.
