#Marquette tolkien archives

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

How would you like to be part of the same Tolkien archival collection that includes the original manuscripts for both the Hobbit and LOTR???

You can! The Raynor Library at Marquette University has those priceless treasures, and they’re also creating a fandom oral history project to document all the various types of people who love Tolkien’s work.

You can sign up here to do a short online interview with Bill Fliss, Marquette’s manuscript archivist — you just talk about how you found Tolkien, why you love the work, what it means to you, etc. He has a goal of 6,000 entries, and he posts them online in groups of 120 (which = an éored! 🐎🗡️) He just posted the 10th éored so (math!) there’s lots of room for more folks.

Bill is lovely, and he asked for help spreading the word. So I’m doing it! You can put yourself into Tolkien history, and you can help ensure that the representation of the fandom in the archives captures the full range of those of us who are here and don’t necessarily conform to the bro-heavy reputation of the fandom at large. So, if you’re interested, definitely talk to Bill, or let me know if you have questions about how it works.

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

Apparently my every post has now become a target for “Tolkien experts” talking about Elven purity culture, Celeborn, and the usual bullshit.

Folks: “Rings of Power” has Tolkien experts to assist with the writing of their scripts. Not only that but the Tolkien estate has to approve every decision they make.

And if the Tolkien estate greenlighted Galadriel being in love with Halbrand (Sauron) and being sexually attracted to him, there is nothing you can do about it. You don’t own Tolkien’s legacy. The Tolkien estate does, and they approved.

The infamous John Boorman's script and Tolkien stamp of approval

I’ve seen some people crying over Tolkien’s approval of the infamous John Boorman’s script for a “Lord of the Rings” movie adaptation in the mid-1970's. Why is this script infamous? Because it has Galadriel having sex with Frodo before he looks into her Mirror. This movie was never made for lack of funds, but a copy of the script is in Marquette University Tolkien collection.  

Tolkien agreed to this wild take (Galadriel x Frodo sex), for whatever reason. And it wasn’t because of the money (as I read some saying) because he was approached for Disney Studios and he, promptly declined: Disney would surely pay him more than Boorman’s team. And he didn’t say “no” because he hated animation (his later hatred for animation probably started because of his feud with Walt Disney), but because he believed the studio wouldn’t make his work justice (he particularly hated Disney's dwarves).

The fact that Tolkien was willing to entertain Boorman’s crazy script, and even allowing it to be made, in the first place, does mean something. And Tolkien was, indeed, protective of his work, so it’s highly unlikely he would consent for a script to be adapted to the cinema without him knowing what was on it. And something as insane as Galadriel f*cking Frodo in the middle of the woods was surely not hidden from him. Boorman was close with personal friends of Tolkien, and this script took six months to be completed after extensive research into Tolkien lore. 

This scene hits differently now, huh?

Why would Tolkien ever accept such an insane take as Galadriel having sex with a Hobbit in her kingdom? Don’t know. It could be because of the pagan and Old Norse inspirations (or even Greek) on his work, where priestesses use sex in a ritualistic manner.

Tolkien already established Galadriel as a different she-elf from the rest on several occasions, and in the “Unfinished Tales” she takes Celeborn as her lover before they are even married. Maybe Tolkien did wrote her a sex positive character, who knows? She's rebellious and doesn't care about the rules, already! Or maybe there’s a secret draft on his archive with Sauron x Galadriel, and Sauron possessed Frodo to have sex with her (since he no longer had physical form at that time)?

Tolkien changed his legendarium so many times, and there are so many versions of it, extensive studies have to made about it because no one knows what is what. There is no "Tolkien canon".

So, yeah, maybe Galadriel already rode Sauron's D, or will in future seasons, just like Tolkien intended with the Boorman's script.

But Tolkien estate said "no sex scenes" on "Rings of Power", so this is the sex scene we got:

(And brace yourself for more sexual symbolism and innuendo in future seasons).

[frodothefair]

In doing research for fanfiction, I found this. Apparently, it was written by Tolkien on the back of a menu card at a faculty dinner he attended. The card is archived at Marquette University Libraries in Milwaukee, WI, and was reproduced in Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth.

[fanhackers]

Mark Heresy, American, b. 1965. Will to Power (detail), 1992, Ink on paper, 28 x 22 in, 2000.11.5, Gift of Peter Norton, Collection of the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University

Putting on an exhibition was the furthest thing from my mind when, through my PhD assistantship, I was placed at Marquette University’s Haggerty Museum of Art in the Fall of 2022. To say that I was anxious to talk authoritatively about fine art would be a dramatic understatement. Historically, my visits to art museums included confusion about what was (and wasn’t) considered “good,” and my daily experience with art centered around the fan pieces I saw posted on Tumblr and Instagram. I was, to put it bluntly, terrified.

During the same time period, I was struggling to find the focus of my dissertation. With Master's degrees in both English and Business Administration, and with a passion for fanfiction, I knew I wanted to talk about fan compensation. I had read plenty of scholarly books and articles that were passionate about promoting fandom as valid, positive, and useful, and plenty more that broke down the unpaid labor that fans engaged in for their fan objects, but I had never seen these two concepts addressed at the same time. Texts considering fan compensation tended to view fan labor in a negative light. At best, fanworks were viewed as a gift from a fan to the fan community at large, with fans knowing they would be repaid when other fans within the community gifted their own fanworks in return. (Nevermind that I myself have a fic on AO3 that is—as of writing this—the only fic belonging to its extremely rare-pairing). At worst, fanwork was viewed as unpaid labor, utilized—often unethically—to prop up the mass-media corporations who profited from it. I wanted to consider the ways in which fans were paid that weren't specifically monetarily based, and I wanted to address the topic from a position of honoring and respecting fanworks in all their forms. 

Even with this knowledge of what I wanted to discuss, I was struggling in my program. My experience in both of my Master’s programs had not prepared me for the fast pace at which new ideas and theories were disseminated in fan studies and through digital communities. Each time I thought I had found something new and exciting to add to the scholarship, I read a new paper—or more often watched a TikTok—which said my great idea in a better and smarter way than I had considered it. I felt discouraged and lost. I took a step back from my research, deciding to focus my time and energy on my assistantship instead. The museum was showing a portion of Marquette University’s collection of Tolkien manuscripts, and part of my duties included gathering three minute oral histories from fans for The J.R.R. Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection. Inspired by this experience, I began to think about museums and archives, about what gets archived, about what gets displayed, and about who gets to make those decisions.

When the Haggerty Museum’s Curator for Academic Engagement approached me about an exhibition centering my own research, my first thought was to hang fan art on the walls. This, I was quickly told, was not an option for a plethora of reasons. Couldn’t I instead, it was suggested, use fine art pieces to discuss these types of fanworks? I first considered using pieces that could themselves be seen as fanworks—variations on mythology and biblical stories, new ways of considering historical moments and places, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe… but this didn’t feel like enough. Everything is inspired by something. Is that enough to make it a fanwork?  

It was from these thoughts and musings that Affirmation/Transformation: Fandom Created was born. Fourteen fine art pieces were selected from the Haggerty’s permanent collection—each of which will be used to discuss something that fans create. I categorized fan creations broadly: alternative readings, collections, community and collaboration, emotional responses, histories, identity, meanings, new texts, parasocial relationships, play, political and social movements, rivalry and opposition, rules, and theories.. The 14 fine art  pieces will be hung in the gallery during the exhibition, but are also currently available to view online. In this ongoing project, fans are invited to create fanworks inspired by these 14 pieces, and the fanworks submitted will be displayed digitally alongside the fine art. Think of it like a Prompt Meme challenge, featuring fine art as your prompt!

My experience with fandom is as much about community as it is about the thing I’m a fan of, and this is why it was so important to me to avoid discussing fandom in a vacuum. An exhibition of just my voice explaining what fans created felt cold; it felt disconnected from and disrespectful to the very thing I was trying to celebrate. This is why my dissertation project is collaborative, featuring the voices and creations of fans everywhere. I also feel called to ensure that these fanworks are treated with the respect that they deserve. This doesn’t just apply to the ways in which I will write about them in my final dissertation text; moreso, it is vitally important to me to take advantage of the opportunity I have to archive fanworks in Marquette’s institutional repository. Archiving these fanworks not only preserves them for potential future academic research, but also marks them—and fanworks in general—as being worthy of a place within the academic archive.  Fan submissions for Affirmation/Transformation: Fandom Created are being accepted now, and will continue to be accepted through the close of the exhibition (December 22, 2024). In order to be on display in the gallery on opening night (August 23, 2024), fanworks must be submitted by August 1st. All types of fanworks are welcome, as long as they are submitted digitally. Sound will be available to be played in the gallery (fanworks will be displayed on tablets with headphones attached).  For more information, visit https://epublications.marquette.edu/fandom/Affirmationtransformation/, or email Kate Rose at AffirmationTransformationShow@gmail.com

[tolkien-fandom-history]

Preserving fandom history often runs into questions of copyright and ethics.

In this article, Marquette University's Tolkien archivist William Fliss discusses some of the issues faced by the FellowsHub project (and how they have navigated them), which aims to archive Tolkien fanzines, including making them available and searchable online.

[protytwo]

Lee Thorin in cape and zap gun at the Costume Ball at Discon, the 1963 World Science Fiction Convention in Washington, D.C.

She's wearing Leslie Gerber's name badge for some reason. Was she crashing the Costume Ball? She was known to New York fandom, and is noted for publishing fanzine Efanescent in 1960 which is archived at Marquette University's Tolkien collection.

[z-h-i-e]

Going backwards…

Thank you for the well wishes for my dog. She is a fighter and while we may not have her for too much longer, as long as the time she has is good for her, all the home treatment will be worth it.

I love the presentation of the illustration in the hardcover edition. Any time you can get Tolkien’s art in a published work, I think it adds to the reading experience.

And sometimes a well-loved book is a well-loved book. I have a copy of The Hobbit that went with the Rankin and Bass animated cartoon, and while it’s a bit beat up, it’s beat up in the way a much-read children’s book would be, and it is a favorite.

I will mention, since the question comes up on how I have so many Tolkien books/copies—I live about 15 minutes from the Tolkien Archives at Marquette, and a 15 minute triangulation point is the nearest used book store. That means I go there at the end of each semester and I scoop up books that grad students purchased to complete their studies while they were here at a discounted price. Some of the books I have were rescued from last chance carts for fifty cents. I’ve been doing this for some 25 years. So I have been very fortunate for the opportunity I have. ^_^

I love this fandom, look at this person's comment:

😂😂😂 so true

[ceruleanwhore]

Does anyone else find it funny when people talk about the ‘theory that the Arkenstone is a silmaril’ when Tolkien had that in his drafts but cut it because no one would agree to publish the Silmarillion (even under the assumption that he would finish it) so no one would’ve known what he was talking about? Like I love how, even though he cut it, it came through clearly enough that people picked up on it and then made it into a theory like it wasn’t already basically canon because they don’t know about the drafts and don’t realize that yeah, it’s already kind of in there.

[phoenixrisesoncemore]

Very excited to attend Marquette's "Art of the Manuscript" this Sept!

From the link in the tags:

“J.R.R. Tolkien: The Art of the Manuscript,” an exhibition of manuscripts from the celebrated author and artist J.R.R. Tolkien, best known for his literary classics “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” opens Friday, Aug. 19, and runs through Friday, Dec. 23, at the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University, 1234 W. Tory Hill St."

"The Haggerty Museum of Art and Raynor Memorial Libraries at Marquette are partnering to present “J.R.R. Tolkien: The Art of the Manuscript,” the foundation of which will be Marquette’s extensive collection of Tolkien manuscripts housed within the library’s Department of Special Collections and University Archives. The exhibition will also include items borrowed from other repositories, including a significant number of Tolkien manuscripts and artwork from the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford.

"The exhibition will include 147 items, many that have not been previously exhibited or published."

"The collection of work by J.R.R. Tolkien housed at Raynor Libraries includes the original manuscripts and multiple working drafts for three of the author’s most celebrated books, “The Hobbit,” “The Lord of the Rings” and “Farmer Giles of Ham,” as well as the original copy of the children’s book “Mr. Bliss.” The collection also includes books by and about Tolkien, periodicals produced by Tolkien enthusiasts, audio and video recordings, and a host of published and unpublished materials relating to Tolkien’s life, fantasy writings and the fandom that sprang up around his collected writings on Middle-earth."

[upennmanuscripts]

Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth

January 25 through May 12, 2019

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York City

(visit the exhibit website here)

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” With these words the Oxford professor J.R.R. Tolkien ignited a fervid spark in generations of readers. From the children’s classic The Hobbit to the epic The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien’s adventurous tales of hobbits and elves, dwarves and wizards have introduced millions to the rich history of Middle-earth. Going beyond literature, Tolkien’s Middle-earth is a world complete with its own languages and histories. Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth celebrates the man and his creation. The exhibition will be the most extensive public display of original Tolkien material for several generations. Drawn from the collections of the Tolkien Archive at the Bodleian Library (Oxford), Marquette University Libraries (Milwaukee), the Morgan, and private lenders, the exhibition will include family photographs and memorabilia, Tolkien’s original illustrations, maps, draft manuscripts, and designs related to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.

[meandrichard]

Your opinions on Tolkien could go down in history #richardarmitage

Marquette University is creating an archive of statements by Tolkien fans about what draws them to Tolkien. Article here. Official announcement tomorrow (Monday). You can archive up to three minutes!

[postmarq]

“Not all those who wander are lost.” — J.R.R. Tolkien. Marquette University Archives is home to several of Tolkien’s manuscripts.

[deepartnature]

The Largest J.R.R. Tolkien Exhibit in Generations Is Coming to the U.S.: Original Drawings, Manuscripts, Maps & More

"'I first took on The Lord of the Rings at the age of eleven or twelve,' writes The New Yorker's Anthony Lane. ... And it hardly requires covering much more ground to get from hungering to know everything about the world of The Lord of the Rings — one rich with its own terrain, its own races, its own languages — to hungering to know how Tolkien created it. Now the countless Lord of the Rings enthusiasts in America have their chance to behold the materials first-hand. The exhibition Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth, which runs from January 25th to May 12th of this year at New York's Morgan Library and Museum, will assemble 'the  most extensive public display of original Tolkien material for several  generations,' drawing from 'the collections of the Tolkien Archive at  the Bodleian Library (Oxford), Marquette University Libraries  (Milwaukee), the Morgan, and private lenders.' ..."

Open Culture (Video)

[z-h-i-e]

From https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Erestor

(Though I’ve also seen the microfiche at the Tolkien Archive at Marquette to verify, however, the person who originally clued me in on this was Christina Scull in 2004 in passing at the Blackwelder conference.)

So now imagine: every scene from lotr, but with Erestor subbed in for Pippin.

Gandalf in Moria: Fool of an Elf! *resists urge to push Erestor down the well *

Following up to last week's poll, where we established that Pippin was the most disposable member of the company, who would you add to the Fellowship? Either as a tenth walker or a replacement for the character of your choice.

This is the canon character poll, since I have too many ideas. Bill the Pony isn't on it, because he's already part of the Fellowship.

[z-h-i-e]

Happy Tolkien Reading Day / Destruction of the Ring!

This has turned into a weekend celebration for me - on Thursday I gave a lecture on Tolkien’s poetry at an early event (due to the day being a Saturday this year, and not all libraries are open on Saturdays), and then yesterday I visited the Tolkien Archives at Marquette University to listen to a talk on the development of the Legendarium from William Fliss, as well as see a number of items from the collection (Marquette has the manuscripts for Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Mr. Bliss, and Farmer Giles, plus a lot of other bits and pieces of things, and critical works). 

My plans today include two things:

1) Gather people in a Skype channel who want to listen to or read some of Tolkien’s poetry (as today’s theme for TRD is ‘Poetry and Songs in Tolkien’s Fiction’). If it’s anything like the Thursday event, eventually it will lead to discussion of how many Elves had names beginning with ‘Fin’ and also how amazing the name Findekano is (for the record, I was not the one to get that part of the discussion rolling). [Post lecture discussion at the archive included the number of people who lose hands, so, I just want to point out, Tolkien lectures follow-up with the sort of high-quality information you would expect, just about every time.]

2) Record at least one of my fanfics today - I haven’t done that since about 2006, and the ones that are out there are downloaded quite a bit (at least, that’s what the page stats are claiming).  At the lecture yesterday, we listened to a passage read by Tolkien, and as he was fond of reading and recording his works, I thought it could be a fun way to celebrate today.  

I’m not sure which one(s), but certainly nothing unfinished, and nothing multi-chapter (unless it’s only a few chapters).  Feel free to pitch suggestions at me...

[reading-writing-revolution]

Looks fun!

Tolkien enthusiasts have an opportunity to learn more about these epic tales and the man behind them in an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. An upcoming exhibit called Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth will  from January 25 to May 12, 2019 and use a vast amount of original material to show how the beloved British author developed his iconic works of fiction. Hailed as “the most extensive public display of original Tolkien material for several generations,” the exhibition borrows from the Tolkien Archive at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Marquette University Libraries, the Morgan, and private lenders to paint a portrait of the author’s stunning achievements.