Signum University invites you to join us on Saturday, 24 October in Derry, NH, USA, for New England Moot. We return to our usual Derry location, Studio Lab, home of Rings & Realms. As we gather in Studio A for our annual get-together, this year’s theme cordially invites you to enjoy “filling up the corners” as you partake in The Second Breakfast Club: Food, Feasting, and Famine in the Legendarium.
Register Here for New England Moot!
Cost: $50 USD for in-person attendance, $25 USD for remote attendance
‘Po – ta – toes,’ said Sam. ‘The Gaffer’s delight, and rare good ballast for an empty belly. But you won’t find any, so you needn’t look. But be good Sméagol and fetch me the herbs, and I’ll think better of you. What’s more, if you turn over a new leaf, and keep it turned, I’ll cook you some taters one of these days. I will: fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee. You couldn’t say no to that.’
‘Yes, yes we could. Spoiling nice fish, scorching it. Give me fish now, and keep nassty chips!’
‘Oh you’re hopeless,’ said Sam.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
From the seed-cakes of Bag End to the lembas of Lórien, from Beorn’s honeyed cream to Gollum’s raw fish, food in Tolkien’s legendarium stimulates both body and soul. Food and drink in Tolkien also connects to ritual, gender, class, and the environment. A single Ent draught from Wellinghall, salted pork from Bree, or the wine of the Elvenking’s halls; each carries economic, political, and sometimes even liturgical weight. It is a moral language, a marker of civilization, a weapon of hospitality, and sometimes a haunting absence. The “Second Breakfast Club” invites presentations that take food, drink, or their lack of through famine, war, and pestilence, as a narrative, theological, and ecological force in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and beyond.
Ideas to nourish your imagination include:
- The Politics of Poaching: How does Gollum’s diet (raw fish, orc scraps) mark him as irredeemably “other” while Sam’s cooking of coneys shows skill and care?
- The Wines of Dorwinion: Trade routes, luxury goods, and the hidden economy of Middle-earth.
- Beorn’s Table: Vegetarian hospitality and the ethics of eating in a world with sentient animals and Ents.
- “Po-ta-toes”: The humble potato as a symbol of hobbit resilience, a New World crop in a pseudo-medieval world, and the physics of boiling, mashing, and sticking in a stew.
We welcome close readings, comparative studies, and interdisciplinary approaches (history, anthropology, religion, ecology, disability studies, etc.) that examine the edible and the inedible, the feast and the fast, the communal table and the solitary crumb.
Submit Your Presentation Proposal Here!
Please note that a conference theme helps tie the day together and optimize fun, and we welcome anyone to respond to the Call for Proposals. Our moots are supportive environments for practicing or developing your presentation skills regardless of your experience.
This Call for Proposals will close after 24 September. We will finalize the schedule then and post it here.
Your New England Moot ticket allow you to enjoy our dear Sparrow Alden’s Famous Waffles for breakfast, as well as Elevenses and Afternoon Tea during moot breaks. During the Moot, we will have a catered lunch brought in from Amphora, as there are no restaurants in walking distance of Studio Lab. This cost is separate from your New England Moot ticket and must be purchased through our Blackberry system when you register – cash will not be accepted on site. You are not required to pay for the lunch and can, if you wish, drive off-property or bring your own. Following the Moot, there will be an informal, unofficial dinner at a local restaurant with Corey Olsen and the New England Moot team. Like the catered lunch, this is not included in the registration fee and will be at your own additional cost should you join us.
Please read our Regional Moot Recording and Privacy Notice. You will be required to agree to its contents in our registration system before completing your ticket purchase.
