Tolkien Fanworks Scholarship Bibliography by Dawn Felagund

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Fanwork Notes

The Tolkien fandom is one of the oldest and most prolific fanworks-producing fandoms. The first documented Tolkien fanworks began appearing in the late 1950s, and since then, the fandom has produced hundreds of thousands of fanworks, largely fanfiction and fanart. Despite this, Tolkien-based fanworks and the communities that create them have received very little study compared to fandoms of a similar size and longevity. To wit, there are entire volumes on fanworks that do not mention Tolkien fanworks even once. This is a loss for the fan studies field, as the Tolkien fandom has cultural features that distinguish it from other fandoms that have received more study—and thus have shaped (misshaped?) the field's understanding of fanworks.

However, there has been fan studies work done that focuses on Tolkien-based fanworks, and this collection aims to highlight that work. I will include scholarly work that 1) focuses on Tolkien-based fanworks (of any kind) and 2) is available for free online. (If you have access to an academic library and want a broader list, see the list of scholarship on Fanlore here.) Much of the work in this area has been done by independent scholars, so I am defining "scholarship" as anything published in an edited or peer-reviewed publication or presented at a conference.

Please comment if you know of a work that fits the criteria above that I have not included. I do have copies of many works on this subject that are not available online; please message me if you're looking for a print article or chapter that you haven't been able to find. Works are listed alphabetically by title.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

This collection includes links to online open-access scholarship about Tolkien-based fanworks.

Major Characters:

Major Relationships:

Genre: Reference Collection

Challenges:

Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate

Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn
Posted on 11 June 2022 Updated on 6 July 2022

This fanwork is a work in progress.

"Affirmational and Transformational Values and Practices in the Tolkien Fanfiction Community" by Dawn Walls-Thumma

Fanfiction scholars tend to assume that fanfiction serves a "transformational" purpose, intentionally writing against the canon to foreground the reader's/viewer's own experiences. This paper makes the case that Tolkien fanfiction—which is produced by an understudied fan community—shows that authors have a much more complex relationship with the canon, at times subverting it but also studying it, collecting it, and celebrating it through their fanworks. Using 2015 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data, I further show that the communities Tolkien fanfiction writers built are often undergirded by these ideas about the appropriate role of canon in fanworks.

"Attainable Vistas: Historical Bias in Tolkien's Legendarium as a Motive for Transformative Fanworks" by Dawn Walls-Thumma

In this article I take a two-pronged approach, first exploring the evidence for historical bias in Tolkien's books. Next, I make the case that this bias serves as an impetus for some—though not all—authors to explore characters, using data from the 2015 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey to show that, among some fan communities, characters who receive negative bias receive increased attention from fanfiction writers.

"Constructing Lothiriel: Rewriting and Rescuing the Women of Middle-Earth from the Margins" by Karen Viars and Cate Coker

After a review of the scholarship on women characters and fanfiction, Viars and Coker make the case that most writers place Lothiriel in the role of a romance heroine, navigating the roles of men and women in society, primarily in the domestic sphere.

"Deconstructing Durin’s Day: Science, Scientific Fan Fiction, and the Fan-Scholar" by Kristine Larsen

Kristine Larsen makes the case that attempts by fans to elucidate the scientific underpinnings of aspects of the legendarium, such as Durin's Day, are a form of fanwork and further expand the scientific knowledge of the creator and his/her/their audience.

"Diving into the Lacuna: Fan Studies, Methodologies, and Mending the Gaps" by Dawn Walls-Thumma

In this creative essay, I argue that fan studies scholars have largely ignored Tolkien fanfiction because they don't know what to do with us. This lack—and the perception of a lack is part of what drives the creation of fanworks—ultimately inspired my work on the Tolkien Fanfiction Survey.

"J.R.R. Tolkien, Fanfiction, and 'The Freedom of the Reader'" by Megan B. Abrahamson

Initially published in Mythlore in 2013 and the recipient of the Mythcon student paper award that year, Abrahamson makes the case for the legitimacy of fanfiction by drawing comparisons with Tolkien's own creative method and "theory of story" presented in texts like "On Fairy Stories."

"'Oh ... oh ... Frodo!': Readings of Male Intimacy in The Lord of the Rings" by Anna Smol

One of the defining scholarly works about homosexual relationships in Tolkien's work, this article focuses on the relationship between Sam and Frodo and includes discussion of the fan response to how their characters are often read as queer.

"Reimagining Rose: Portrayals of Tolkien's Rosie Cotton in Twenty-First Century Fan Fiction" by Amy Sturgis

According to Sturgis, the "incomplete portrait of Rosie Cotton drawn by Tolkien now serves as a challenge to the burgeoning world of Tolkien fan fiction." Sturgis considers the many mechanisms by which fanfiction writers draw Rosie into their stories: as a capable partner to Sam, as a participant in a open relationship that includes Frodo, and as a supernatural AU character. The article also covers fanfiction where Rosie is rejected in order to make room for a partnership between Sam and Frodo.

"Thrusts in the Dark: Slashers' Queer Practices" by Robin Anne Reid

Reid argues for understanding slash as a phenomenon that transcends understanding gender and sexual identity on a binary, an area understudied in the scholarship. Reid also considers darkfic in opposition to the more traditional understanding of slash fiction as romance fiction. You can request a copy of the article at the link above.

"Under the Waterfall: A Fanfiction Community’s Analysis of their Self-Representation and Peer Review" by Kristi Lee Brobeck

Included in the book The Democratic Genre by Sheenagh Pugh—considered one of the inaugural works in fanfiction studies—Brobeck's article analyzes how members of the erstwhile Henneth Annûn Story Archive (HASA) viewed the site and in particular its review system.