#cultus dispatches

[silmarillionwritersguild-art]

Arda during the Years of the Lamps envisioned by @soluscheese, article by @dawnfelagund

Tolkien's canon is complicated. That's an understatement. There are dozens of books presenting multiple versions—some of them contradictory, difficult to date, and sometimes hard to even read—and that's before one considers the many adaptations, fanworks and fan interpretations, scholarship, and myriad other "takes" on Middle-earth.

This Cultus Dispatches column is one of our Fandom Voices columns, where we present a question or two to the community in an attempt to capture a range of fan experiences with a topic. We asked participants how they define canon and, if they make fanworks, how they use that canon in their fanworks. We received a record number of responses, many of them going into great depth, and so this iteration of Fandom Voices is divided into two columns, beginning with how fans define Tolkien's canon. However, you can read all of the responses together here.

How Tolkien fans define canon mirrors the complexity of the canon itself. We agree on very little (although many people noted the value of different approaches and the importance of tolerance), but the result is a decades-strong fandom where vibrant discussion and creative interpretation of the legendarium have lulled but never completely ceased. Respondents wrangled with how to handle the canon's many contradictions, the place of Christopher Tolkien's editorial work, the historical and mythical framework of the legendarium and the impact of that approach, and where adaptations and fanworks belong in terms of canon, among many other issues raised and discussed.

You can read the first part of "Fandom Voices: Defining Canon and Using Canon in Fanworks" here, published by @silmarillionwritersguild

Also note that our Fandom Voices surveys never close. If you didn't get a chance to share your views and want to, it is not too late! We will continue to add new responses to the collection as they come in (including pulling from new responses for the second part of the article. You can respond to the "Defining Canon" survey here.

Finally, we are in the midst of a series of Cultus Dispatches articles focusing on canon in the Tolkien fandom. Cultus Dispatches is always open to contributions from all members of the fandom, so if you know of a creator or fanwork that takes an interesting approach to canon, or if you have another idea related to canon and fandom, contact our moderators and pitch your idea! Our reference editors will support new researchers and writers through the process, so don't let unfamiliarity with research writing dissuade you from sharing your ideas with us.

#tolkien fandom history #fandom history #fan studies #swg newsletter #cultus dispatches #artists on tumblr #soluscheese #arda

[silmarillionwritersguild]

Some of fanfiction's most beloved ideas, pairings, and details were never so much as imagined, much less written down, by Tolkien. Fanon, or fan-generated ideas and details, pervade fanworks, but these details are more than just inventions or even personalized touches added to the legendarium. In many cases, they are the fruits of conversations carried across decades.

Yet fanon hasn't always enjoyed a comfortable acceptance in all corners of the Tolkien fanfiction fandom. At times, despite its ubiquity, it has been dismissed as frivolous or even harmful to Tolkien's legacy. Yet evidence suggests these viewpoints have shifted over time.

In this month's Cultus Dispatches column, Dawn uses Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data to consider fanon and fan-generated ideas more broadly. Looking at both how readers and writers view fanon, she reveals shifting attitudes as the fandom matures.

You can read Talking amongst Ourselves: Tolkien Fanfiction and Fanon here.

#cultus dispatches #fandom studies #fanon

[dawnfelagund]

I wrote this article for my monthly Tolkien fandom studies column, Cultus Dispatches as part of the OTW's "ten things about fandom" challenge for International Fanworks Day. Normally, my Cultus column begins with a gnarly soup of data, and I often don't even know what (if anything!) will come out of analyzing it. This month, due to the relative lack of data, I thought I was giving myself an easy month of writing. I just needed to come up with ten things, right?? Ha! I think this might be the most challenging article I've written for this column to date.

Here are some fun facts I learned while researching these 10 Important Moments in Tolkien Fanfic History:

Tolkien fanfic is older than Star Trek fanfic.

The first known Tolkien fanfic was an alternate-history Sauron redemption fic.

The first Tolkien fanfic archive was a slash archive.

Three out of four archives opened after the LotR films left theaters used the eFiction open-source script.

The first Angbang story was posted in 2002 (though it wasn't called Angbang yet).

Want to know more? Go read the article! And I'd love to hear what I didn't include that you'd add to your own list. (Or if you make your own list, let me know!)

Many, many thanks to all of the people who talked with me about their work for this article and to those involved in the discussion on the SWG Discord's #fandom-studies channel about this topic.

#tolkien fandom history #tolkien #silmarilion #lotr #lord of the rings #the hobbit #fandom studies #fandom history #ifd2024

[independence1776]

hi - I'm so sorry that I'm writing to you from my nsfw account but I don't have access to my main (I'm at abanaqun usually) at the moment gdi - hope that's ok! but I am writing to ask: I came across your survey about 2000s Tolkien fandom culture from 2019 today and I was wondering if you ever published that meta and would be willing to share a link?

I'm writing my bachelor thesis on the archiving of fanworks in the lotr fandom. its early stages yet and I'm just reading as much as possible at the moment, and I'd love to read your meta!

Hi! I’m glad you reached out.

As far as you using this account: I have zero problem with it. While I don’t know your reasons for having different accounts, I am honestly perturbed that you felt the need to apologize for it. I’ve been in fanfic fandom for more than twenty years; in the spaces I usually participate in, no one cares if people focus on adult topics or not. It's your blog; do what you want with it. Plus, this is Tumblr. The amount of times people talk about sex and shipping is infinite. And, honestly, I don't check blogs before I answer Asks; the only time I do check peoples’ blogs are when they seem to be approaching me in bad faith or could be spambots. You are clearly neither!

For your actual question, unfortunately, I never wrote the meta. I assumed that people who would take the survey would read the paragraph about why I was doing it and only answer if they’d been involved in that particular area of fandom. It was a bad assumption. A significant number of people who answered never read fanfic; I got responses like “why would I go to archives?” and “I didn’t do any of the above; why didn’t you ask about X?” when X had nothing to do with fanfic fandom. They took me asking solely about fanfic-related things as a flaw in the survey rather than realizing they were not actually the audience for the survey. There were enough of those responses that it would have been serious work to weed them out to get useful data. I didn’t want to put in the effort for what should have been a fun survey. I’m sorry I can’t be of further help with it.

That said, have you checked out @dawnfelagund 's work? Not being involved in the academic side of Tolkien fandom, I believe she’s the main person studying and writing on Tolkien fanfic fandom. She ran an IRB-approved survey focusing on Tolkien fanfic fandom in 2015; I believe most of the results can be found on her Heretic Loremaster blog. She co-ran the survey again in 2020 and is publishing based on that data and in comparision with the earlier survey; her research on that can be found on SWG (I’m linking to her profile; her research articles are included alongside her fic). I know she's published results from both in professional journals, but I can't remember if they're included in the above or not.

Related to that is the Silmarillion Writers’ Guild’s newsletter column Cultus Dispatches, which “delves into the history and culture of the Tolkien fandom.”

I especially want to point you to Dawn’s Tolkien Fanworks Scholarship Bibliography. In it, she lists papers available for free online; she links in the introduction to another list that includes articles not available for free.

I hope this is of some help to you.

#tolkien fandom

[localocksmithnearme]

Suzuki Fob Keys And Remote Program Union City NJ

Breaking the key in the ignition or Losing your vehicle keys at your workplace or returning from the air port might be a horrifying incident, and consequently having an honorable highly trained roadside locksmith service company who can work out your obstacles as quick as possible 24hrs is highly important. As a leading Suzuki lock smith in Union City NJ and nearby area, our masters are on hand around the clock decked with each and every key programmers, software and diagnostic equipment needed to install, programm or replace your car lock, key or ignition on-the-spot.

Models: Aerio, Escudo, Fronte, Sidekick, Santana, Cultus, Samurai, Wagon R, SX4 S-Cross, Ertiga, Vitara, Spacia, Sierra, Suzulight and Reno

Suzuki key replacement in Union City NJ

One of the main element of any Suzuki is it's key and lock mechanism, which must be modified if misplaced or harmed. When this style of a headache occurs we, at Union City Key Replacement, in Union City NJ, are quite skilled to govern all designs of car ignition, lock or key issues on premises.

Suzuki transponder key is specifically compiled to start a specific car and our knowhow personals can construct Suzuki VATS, smart-key, passive anti theft or laser cut keys, as well as replace, repair or install any sort of keys, locks and ignition on premises 24 hour 7 day a week 365 days a year.

About Suzuki locks and key infrastructure

Suzuki is a Japanese car maker producing spectrum of mainstream vehicles. From 2003  Suzuki key lock instrumentation operates on a transponder chip mechanism and in 2008 adopt the SmartPass Keyless entry & starting system as the smart key and push to start ignition solution for practically all of its cars.

The discrete chips transponder key transmits an extremely low level digital message to the vehicle which will only be detected if the exact coded key is in the switch, contrarily the fuel supply and the car wouldn't run and may be locked for a few mins.

This antitheft systems is serving the insurance companies, car manufacturers and car owners in hampering crime and save billions worldwide, nevertheless outplacing lost, stolen and broken keys or even duplicating a supplemental key will be a lot more expensive.

Ignition repair

Suzuki ignition switch supplies current from the battery to nearly every of your electronic car parts and contain small mechanical and electrical modules that customarily tend to wear thin after starting and shutting off  for many years.  

If your Suzuki dashboard security lights are on, ignition key wont turn in the ignition lock, ignition key is hard to turn and key wont come out of the ignition, it's apparently a signs of run-down ignition or key as a result of dent ignition key, high temperature or foreign object inside the key-hole that can all cause the ignition to fail, restricting you from lighting up your car.

While on the road, damaged ignition cylinder could shut the engine off during driving, which might turn out to be very incredibly dangerous, hence we strongly recommend not to try to repair the ignition switch by non-experience individual which might going to induce a deeper deterioration and danger.

The best a person may do running into ignition  issues is to make sure you’re in fact attempting to start up your very own car and schedule with a motor vehicle lock man to arrive to your location to rekey, repair  replace the ignition or key which will priced as approximately $145–$349.

Transponder chipped key forge

Up-to-date car arrayed with car computer and vehicle keys are supplied with computerized chip located on the blade (in V.A.T) keys or stashed into the apex of the key. When the chipped key is slides into the ignition key-tunnel, the transponder chip send a unique code for the ECM to be verified. Without this adaptable authorization code, the car will not ignite.

When a car owner lose or want to copy his key, the transponder has to be de-coded with a new key-code so it would be designated by the vehicle computer unit.

Several car makers models and years ration control board accoutrement for duplication of keys, yet if all keys are misplaced, the vehicle computer unit has to be rekeyed by appropriate programming machine owned by the dealership or a locksmith.

Suzuki keyless entry

Smart-key remotes, also known as (RKE or RKS) allow a user to unlock and lock their car or truck remotely likewise alternative components as unlocking the trunk or turning on the beam light to increase visibility in inclement weather or at night. Furthermore, many present-day keys include remote starting feature which is appear to be mandatory on latest models.

Practically all smartkeys include a proximity-detector-based structure that is light up when the proximity key found within a specific distance of the car. This Proximity key are handsfree meaning that the motor vehicle can be unlocked and locked or crank and deactivate the ignition without any input.

Copy vs lost car keys

Vehicle keys nowadays are no longer $2.50 metal blade keys at a nearest hardware or home depot store. Current Suzuki keys became digital  fob key, sidewinder, proximity key and switch-blade key accommodating transponder keys that should be decoded with diagnostic tools to the motor vehicle . If the car computer system doesnt recognize a compatible transponder, the fuel injection will subdue and the car wouldn't run. This instrument extends a security feature safeguarding the car will forget a stolen or misplaced key.

Even though dash-board process is handy on some earliest designs to simply copy keys, in most cases to get an additional key programmed, the chip in the key should be decoded by a suitable key programmer carried by the dealer or a locksmith which regularly cost roughly $50-$125 further to the value of the key blank.

Misplacing an original key to a vehicle is a total different manifestation, as the engine control module should be resynced to utilize the new key and reject the original one which means that you will have hire a mobile vehicle lockman or tow your vehicle to the dealership.

Employing this practice extends a security feature safeguarding the car will forget the stolen or misplaced key, however lost key made, system available only to a licensed locksmith or the Suzuki dealership and accordingly will costs $180–$270.

Twenty four hour vehicle lock-out

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Vehicle locks modify

Whether you misplaced the key to your Suzuki, you need an brand-new ignition key, you ruptured the remote fob-key or your old Suzuki key got taken, we have regional car lock man who impart Suzuki alterating services 24 hour. We have a great portfolio of locks and keys for Suzuki and our techs have numberless years of in field experience governing ANY style key programming and cutting and lock re key services. As a substitute to ferrying your car to the dealer, call our customer care office and an expert will arrive to your place of choice to get your lock or ignition changed on-the-spot.

Final words

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[cultusind]

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[paradisevocations-blog]

30 Interesting Facts About the Pantheon in Rome

As a standout amongst the most very much safeguarded structures of Ancient Rome and a building magnum opus, lets observe 30 fun and fascinating realities about the Pantheon in Rome.

1.The current Pantheon is really the third form after the initial 2 torched in flames.

2.The unique Pantheon worked in 31 BC and the development was dispatching Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa

3.The unique Pantheon was really confronting south and not North in its present position

4.After a fire in 80 AD the Pantheon was remade by Domitian and THAT one torched as well and afterward was not modified again until 110 AD by Emperor Hadrian.

5.The Oculus which is the opening of the vault and the wellspring of light for the Pantheon is 8.8 meters in measurement.

6.The Pantheon turned into a congregation in the year 609 AD and before was a pagen sanctuary. It is committed to St. Mary of the Martyrs yet to the vast majority it is essentially known as the Pantheon.

7.The rotunda of the Pantheon is a flawless half of the globe which measures 43.2 m in distance across which is precisely the greatest tallness of the vault.

8.The arch vault which is 4,535 metric tons in weight and isis focused on a ring of voussoirs 9.1 meters in distance across.

9.At 43.2 meters the Pantheon was the universes biggest block arch for more than 1000 years between the year 128– 1436 AD. It wa overwhelmed by the Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence which was made by the artchitect Filippo Brunelleschi who had spent numerous years in Rome contemplating the contruction of the Pantheon.

10.The engraving on the Patheon peruses "M. AGRIPPA.L.F.COSTERTIUM.FECIT" which signifies "Marcus Agrippa child of Lucius, having been delegate three times made it".

11.The awesome craftsman Michelangelo who was not effortlessly inspired depicted the Pantheon as "other-worldly and not human plan."

12.Boths Kings of Italy are covered in the Pantheon, Umberto I and his significant other Queen Margherita alongside Vittorio Emmanuele II.

13.However the Pantheon is STILL right up 'til today the universes biggest unreinforced solid vault ever.

14.The name Pantheon is gotten from antiquated greek as a sanctuary devoted to all divine beings as "container" (all) and "theos" (god).

15.Pope Urban VIII included the two chime towers composed by Bernini in the 1500s however they were evacuated in 1883 subsequent to being named "jackass' ears".

16.To help the arch the block dividers of the Pantheon must be made 6 meters thick which is around 20 feet.

17.The Pantheon has its own particular waste framework to manage the rain that falls through the Oculus. In the event that you take a gander at the floor you will discover a few openings in the sections to deplete the water.

18.Maria Bibbiena the forgiving life partner of Rafael the craftsman is additionally covered beside him within the Pantheon.

19.Below the orginal engraving you will locate a moment engravement made by Septimius Severus and his child and co-head Caracalla from the reclamation in 202 AD. It Reads: "IMP[ERATOR] CAES[AR] L[UCIUS] SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS … ET IMP[ERATOR] M[ARCUS] AURELIUS ANTONINUS… PANTHEUM VETUSTATE CORRUPTUM CUM OMNI CULTU RESTITUERUNT"

"Sovereign Lucius Septimius Severus… and Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus… with every refinement they reestablished the Pantheon, harmed by the section of years."

20.The outline of the Pantheon is with the goal that an immaculate circle could sit inside symbolizing the vault of paradise.

21.In the 1800s Pope Pius VII tidied up the Piazza confronting the Pantheon and left the engraving on the divider as should be obvious today: "PIVS · VII · P · M · A · PONTIFICATVS · SVI · XXIII · AREAM · ANTE · PANTHEON · M · AGRIPPAE IGNOBILIBVS · TABERNIS DEMOLITIONE · PROVIDENTISSIMA AB · INVISA · DEFORMITATE · VINDICAVIT ET · IN · LIBERVM · LOCI · PROSPECTVM · PATERE · IVSSIT"

"Pius VII Supreme Pontiff, in the 23rd Year of His Pontificate the 23rd, liberated the territory of the

Pantheon of Marcus Agrippa of the dishonorable organizations by attempted an exceptionally mindful program of obliteration to render clear the perspective of the site."

22.The Pantheon was initially worked with a flight of steps yet a later development raised the level of the ground prompting the porch which dispensed with the means.

23.During the day the light getting through the oculus and moves around within the Pantheon in a switch sundial impact.

24.The Pantheon has been bit by bit stripped of its Bronze adornment throughout the hundreds of years. In 1631 Pope Urban VIII Barberini took the bronze from within the porch to make guns for Castel Sant' Angelo offering ascend to the maxim "quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini" (what the brutes didn't do, the barberini did).

It is felt that more than 500,000 individuals lost their lives and over a million wild creatures were slaughtered all through the length of the Colosseum facilitated individuals versus mammoth amusements.

25.The Pantheon holds tomb of the popular craftsman Raphael (1483-1520 AD).

26.It took the old Roman's 4-5 years to fabricate the dividers of the Rotunda and another 4-5 years to manufacture the arch itself.

27.The swinging doors of the Pantheon are 21 feet high.

28.The Pantheon brags 16 huge segments for the inward territory of the Portico.

29.There are numerous well known landmarks everywhere throughout the world displayed on the Pantheon in Rome, for example, for example, the US Capitol Building, the Pantheon in Paris, Santa Maria del fiore in Florence and the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C.

30.The Pantheon is situated at Piazza della Rotonda and in spite of the fact that the square is rectangular it is names so after the informal medieval name of the Pantheon which was Santa Maria Rotonda.

#pantheon #rome #italy #history #ancient #architecture #huge #old #tourism

[pamphletstoinspire]

MARY THE CHURCH AT THE SOURCE - PART 2

WRITTEN BY: JOSEPH CARDINAL RATZINGER AND HANS URS VON BALTHASAR

________

II

THOUGHTS ON THE PLACE OF MARIAN DOCTRINE AND PIETY IN FAITH AND THEOLOGY AS A WHOLE

I. The Background and Significance of the Second Vatican Council’s Declarations on Mariology

The question of the significance of Marian doctrine and piety cannot disregard the historical situation of the Church in which the question arises. We can understand and respond correctly to the profound crisis of postconciliar Marian doctrine and devotion only if we see this crisis in the context of the larger development of which it is a part. Now, we can say that two major spiritual movements defined the period stretching from the end of the First World War to the Second Vatican Council, two movements that had—albeit in very different ways—certain “charismatic features”. On the one side, there was a Marian movement that could claim charismatic roots in La Salette, Lourdes, and Fatima. It had steadily grown in vigor since the Marian apparitions of the mid-1800s. By the time it reached its peak under Pius XII, its influence had spread throughout the whole Church. On the other side, the interwar years had seen the development of the liturgical movement, especially in Germany, the origins of which can be traced to the renewal of Benedictine monasticism emanating from Solesmes as well as to the eucharistic inspiration of Pius X. Against the background of the youth movement, it gained—in Central Europe, at least—an increasingly wider influence throughout the Church at large. The ecumenical and biblical movements quickly joined with it to form a single mighty stream. Its fundamental goal—the renewal of the Church from the sources of Scripture and the primitive form of the Church’s prayer—likewise received its first official confirmation under Pius XII in his encyclicals on the Church and on the liturgy.1

As these movements increasingly influenced the universal Church, the problem of their mutual relationship also came increasingly to the fore. In many respects, they seemed to embody opposing attitudes and theological orientations. The liturgical movement tended to characterize its own piety as “objective” and sacramental, to which the strong emphasis on the subjective and personal in the Marian movement offered a striking contrast. The liturgical movement stressed the theocentric character of Christian prayer, which is addressed “through Christ to the Father”; the Marian movement, with its slogan per Mariam àd Jesum [through Mary to Jesus], seemed characterized by a different idea of mediation, by a kind of lingering with Jesus and Mary that pushed the classical trinitarian reference into the background. The liturgical movement sought a piety governed strictly by the measure of the Bible or, at the most, of the ancient Church; the Marian piety that responded to the modern apparitions of the Mother of God was much more heavily influenced by traditions stemming from the Middle Ages and modernity. It reflected another style of thought and feeling.2 The Marian movement doubtless carried with it certain risks that threatened its own basic core (which was healthy) and even made it appear dubious to passionate champions of the other school of thought.3

In any case, a council held at that time could hardly avoid the task of working out the correct relationship between these two divergent movements and of bringing them into a fruitful unity—without simply eliminating their tension. In fact, we can understand correctly the struggles that marked the first half of the Council—the disputes surrounding the Constitution on the Liturgy, the doctrine of the Church, and the right integration of Mariology into ecclesiology, the debate about revelation, Scripture, tradition, and ecumenism—only in light of the tension between these two forces. All the debates we have just mentioned turned—even when there was no explicit awareness of this fact—on the struggle to hammer out the right relationship between the two charismatic currents that were, so to say, the domestic “signs of the times” for the Church. The elaboration of the Pastoral Constitution would then provide the occasion for dealing with the “signs of the times” pressing upon the Church from outside. In this drama the famous vote of October 29, 1963, marked an intellectual watershed. The question at issue was whether to present Mariology in a separate text or to incorporate it into the Constitution on the Church. In other words, the Fathers had to decide the weight and relative ordering of the two schools of piety and thus to give the decisive answer to the situation then existing within the Church. Both sides dispatched men of the highest caliber to win over the plenum. Cardinal König advocated integrating the texts, which de facto could only mean assigning priority to liturgical-biblical piety. Cardinal Rufino Santos of Manila, on the other hand, made the case for the independence of the Marian element. The result of the voting—1114 to 1074—showed for the first time that the assembly was divided into two almost equally large groups. Nevertheless, the part of the Council Fathers shaped by the biblical and liturgical movements had won a victory—albeit a narrow one—and thus brought about a decision whose significance can hardly be overestimated.

Theologically speaking, the majority spearheaded by Cardinal Konig was right. If the two charismatic movements should not be seen as contrary, but must be regarded as complementary, then an integration was imperative, even though this integration could not mean the absorption of one movement by the other. After the Second World War, Hugo Rahner,4 A. Muller,5 K. Delahaye,6 R. Laurentin,7 and O. Semmelroth8 had convincingly demonstrated the intrinsic openness of biblical-liturgical-patristic piety to the Marian dimension. These authors succeeded in deepening both trends toward their center, in which they could meet and from which they could still preserve and fruitfully develop their distinctive character. As the facts stand, however, the Marian chapter of Lumen Gentium was only partly successful in persuasively and vigorously fleshing out the proposal these authors had outlined. Furthermore, postconciliar developments were shaped to a large extent by a misunderstanding of what the Council had actually said about the concept of tradition; this misunderstanding was given a crucial boost by the simplistic reporting of the conciliar debates in the media coverage. The whole debate was reduced to Geiselmann’s question concerning the material “sufficiency” of Scripture,9 which in turn was interpreted in the sense of a biblicism that condemned the whole patristic heritage to irrelevance and thereby also undermined what had until then been the point of the liturgical movement itself. Given the contemporary academic situation, however, biblicism automatically became historicism. Admittedly, even the liturgical movement itself had not been wholly free from historicism. Rereading its literature today, one finds that it was much too influenced by an archeological mentality that presupposed a model of decline: What occurs after a certain point in time appears ipso facto to be of inferior value, as if the Church were not alive and therefore capable of development in every age. As a result of all this, the kind of thinking shaped by the liturgical movement narrowed into a biblicist-positivist mentality, locked itself into a backward-looking attitude, and thus left no more room for the dynamic development of the faith. On the other hand, the distance implied in historicism inevitably paved the way for “modernism”; since what is merely past is no longer living, it leaves the present isolated and so leads to self-made experimentation. An additional factor was that the new, ecclesiocentric Mariology was foreign, and to a large extent remained foreign, precisely to those Council Fathers who had been the principal upholders of Marian piety. Nor could the vacuum thus produced be filled in by Paul VI’s introduction of the title “Mother of the Church” at the end of the Council, which was a conscious attempt to answer the crisis that was already looming on the horizon. In fact, the immediate outcome of the victory of ecclesio centric Mariology was the collapse of Mariology altogether. It seems to me that the changed look of the Church in Latin America after the Council, the occasional concentration of religious feeling on political change, must be understood against the background of these events.

2. The Positive Function of Mariology in Theology

A rethinking was set in motion above all by Paul VI’s apostolic letter Marialis Cultus (February 2, 1974) on the right form of Marian veneration. As we saw, the decision of 1963 had led de facto to the absorption of Mariology by ecclesiology. A reconsideration of the text has to begin with the recognition that its actual historical effect contradicts its own original meaning. For the chapter on Mary (chap. 8) was written so as to correspond intrinsically to chapters 1-4, which describe the structure of the Church. The balance of the two was meant to secure the correct equilibrium that would fruitfully correlate the respective energies of the biblical-ecumenical-liturgical movement and the Marian movements. Let us put it positively: Mariology, rightly understood, clarifies and deepens the concept of Church in two ways.

a. In contrast to the masculine, activistic-sociological populus Dei (people of God) approach, Church10—ecclesia— is feminine. This fact opens a dimension of the mystery that points beyond sociology, a dimension wherein the real ground and unifying power of the reality Church first appears. Church is more than “people”, more than structure and action: the Church contains the living mystery of maternity and of the bridal love that makes maternity possible. There can be ecclesial piety, love for the Church, only if this mystery exists. When the Church is no longer seen in any but a masculine, structural, purely theoretical way, what is most authentically ecclesial about ecclesia has been ignored-the center upon which the whole of biblical and patristic talk about the Church actually hinges.11

b. Paul captures the differentia specifica [specific difference] of the New Testament Church with respect to the Old Testament “pilgrim people of God” in the term “Body of Christ”. Church is, not an organization, but an organism of Christ. If Church becomes a “people” at all, it is only through the mediation of Christology. This mediation, in turn, happens in the sacraments, in the Eucharist, which for its part presupposes the Cross and Resurrection as the condition of its possibility. Consequently, one is not talking about the Church if one says “people of God” without at the same time saying, or at least thinking, “Body of Christ”.12 But even the concept of the Body of Christ needs clarification in order not to be misunderstood in today’s context: it could easily be interpreted in the sense of a Christomonism, of an absorption of the Church, and thus of the believing creature, into the uniqueness of Christology. In Pauline terms, however, the claim that we are the “Body of Christ” makes sense only against the backdrop of the formula of Genesis 2:24: “The two shall become one flesh” (cf. 1 Cor 6:17). The Church is the body, the flesh of Christ in the spiritual tension of love wherein the spousal mystery of Adam and Eve is consummated, hence, in the dynamism of a unity that does not abolish dialogical reciprocity [Gegenübersein]. By the same token, precisely the eucharistic-christological mystery of the Church indicated in the term “Body of Christ” remains within the proper measure only when it includes the mystery of Mary: the mystery of the listening handmaid who—liberated in grace—speaks her Fiat and, in so doing, becomes bride and thus body.13

If this is the case, then Mariology can never simply be dissolved into an impersonal ecclesiology. It is a thorough misunderstanding of patristic typology to reduce Mary to a mere, hence, interchangeable, exemplification of theological structures. Rather, the type remains true to its meaning only when the noninterchangeable personal figure of Mary becomes transparent to the personal form of the Church herself. In theology, it is not the person that is reducible to the thing, but the thing to the person. A purely structural ecclesiology is bound to degrade Church to the level of a program of action. Only the Marian dimension secures the place of affectivity in faith and thus ensures a fully human correspondence to the reality of the incarnate Logos. Here I see the truth of the saying that Mary is the “vanquisher of all heresies”. This affective rooting guarantees the bond ex toto corde-from the depth of the heart—to the personal God and his Christ and rules out any recasting of Christology into a Jesus program, which can be atheistic and purely neutral: the experience of the last few years verifies today in an astonishing way the accuracy of such ancient phrases.

3. The Place of Mariology in the Whole of Theology

In the light of what has been said, the place of Mariology in theology also becomes clear. In his massive tome on the history of Marian doctrine, G. Soil, summing up his historical analysis, defends the correlation of Mariology with Christology and soteriology against ecclesiological approaches to Marian doctrine.14 Without diminishing the extraordinary achievement of this work or the import of its historical findings, I take an opposite view. In my opinion, the Council Fathers’ option for a different approach was correct—correct from the point of view of dogmatic theology and of larger historical considerations. Soil’s conclusions about the history of dogma are, of course, beyond dispute: Propositions about Mary first became necessary in function of Christology and developed as part of the structure of Christology. We must add, however, that none of the affirmations made in this context did or could constitute an independent Mariology; rather, they remained an explication of Christology. By contrast, the patristic period foreshadowed the whole of Mariology in the guise of ecclesiology, albeit without any mention of the name of the Mother of the Lord: The virgo ecclesia [virgin Church], the mater ecclesia [mother Church], the ecclesia immaculata [immaculate Church], the ecclesia assumpta [assumed Church]—the whole content of what would later become Mariology was first conceived as ecclesiology. To be sure, ecclesiology itself cannot be isolated from Christology. Nevertheless, the Church has a relative subsistence [Selbstandigkeit] vis-à-vis Christ, as we saw just now: the subsistence of the bride who, even when she becomes one flesh with Christ in love, nonetheless remains an other before him. [Gegenüber].

It was not until this initially anonymous, though personally shaped, ecclesiology fused with the dogmatic propositions about Mary prepared in Christology that a Mariology having an integrity of its own first emerged within theology (with Bernard of Clairvaux). Thus, we cannot assign Mariology to Christology alone or to ecclesiology alone (much less dissolve it into ecclesiology as a more or less superfluous exemplification of the Church).

Rather, Mariology underscores the nexus mysteriorum—the intrinsic interwovenness of the mysteries in their irreducible mutual otherness [Gegenüber] and their unity. While the conceptual pairs bride-bridegroom and head-body allow us to perceive the connection between Christ and the Church, Mary represents a further step, inasmuch as she is first related to Christ, not as bride, but as mother. Here we can see the function of the title “Mother of the Church”; it expresses the fact that Mariology goes beyond the framework of ecclesiology and at the same time is correlative to it.15

Nor, if this is the case, can we simply argue, in discussing these correlations, that, because Mary was first the Mother of the Lord, she is only an image of the Church. Such an argument would be an unjustifiable simplification of the relationship between the orders of being and knowledge. In response, one could, in fact, rightly point to passages like Mark 3:33-35 or Luke 11:27f and ask whether, assuming this point of departure, Mary’s physical maternity still had any theological significance at all. We must avoid relegating Mary’s maternity to the sphere of mere biology. But we can do so only if our reading of Scripture can legitimately presuppose a hermeneutics that rules out just this kind of division and allows us instead to recognize the correlation of Christ and his Mother as a theological reality. This hermeneutics was developed in the Fathers’ personal, albeit anonymous, ecclesiology that we mentioned just now. Its basis was Scripture itself and the Church’s intimate experience of faith. Briefly put, it says that the salvation brought about by the triune God, the true center of all history, is “Christ and the Church”—Church here meaning the creature’s fusion with its Lord in spousal love, in which its hope for divinization is fulfilled by way of faith.

If, therefore, Christ and ecclesia are the hermeneutical center of the scriptural narration of the history of God’s saving dealings with man, then and only then is the place fixed where Mary’s motherhood becomes theologically significant as the ultimate personal concretization of Church. At the moment when she pronounces her Yes, Mary is Israel in person; she is the Church in person and as a person. She is the personal concretization of the Church because her Fiat makes her the bodily Mother of the Lord. But this biological fact is a theological reality, because it realizes the deepest spiritual content of the covenant that God intended to make with Israel. Luke suggests this beautifully in harmonizing 1:45 (“blessed is she who believed”) and 11:28 (“blessed . . . are those who hear the word of God and keep it”). We can therefore say that the affirmation of Mary’s motherhood and the affirmation of her representation of the Church are related as factum and mysterium facti, as the fact and the sense that gives the fact its meaning. The two things are inseparable: the fact without its sense would be blind; the sense without the fact would be empty. Mariology cannot be developed from the naked fact, but only from the fact as it is understood in the hermeneutics of faith. In consequence, Mariology can never be purely mariological. Rather, it stands within the totality of the basic Christ-Church structure and is the most concrete expression of its inner coherence.16

4. Mariology—Anthropology—Faith in Creation

Pondering the implications of this discussion, we see that, while Mariology expresses the heart of “salvation history”, it nonetheless transcends an approach focused solely on that history. Mariology is an essential component of a hermeneutics of salvation history. Recognition of this fact brings out the true dimensions of Christology over against a falsely understood solus Christus [Christ alone]. Christology must speak of a Christ who is both “head and body”, that is, who comprises the redeemed creation in its relative subsistence [Selbständigkeit]. But this move simultaneously enlarges our perspective beyond the history of salvation, because it counters a false understanding of God’s sole agency, highlighting the reality of the creature that God calls and enables to respond to him freely. Mariology demonstrates that the doctrine of grace does not revoke creation; rather, it is the definitive Yes to creation. In this way, Mariology guarantees the ontological independence [Eigenständigkeit] of creation, undergirds faith in creation, and crowns the doctrine of creation, rightly understood. Questions and tasks await us here that have scarcely begun to be treated or undertaken.

a. Mary is the believing other whom God calls. As such, she represents the creation, which is called to respond to God, and the freedom of the creature, which does not lose its integrity in love but attains completion therein, Mary thus represents saved and liberated man, but she does so precisely as a woman, that is, in the bodily determinateness that is inseparable from man: “Male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). The “biological” and the human are inseparable in the figure of Mary, just as are the human and the “theological”. This insight is deeply akin to the dominant movements of our time, yet it also contradicts them at the very core. For while today’s anthropological program hinges more radically than ever before on “emancipation”, it seeks a freedom whose goal is to “be like God” (Gen 3:5). But the idea that we can be like God implies a detachment of man from his biological conditionality, from the “male and female he created them.” This sexual difference is something that man, as a biological being, can never get rid of, something that marks man in the deepest center of his being. Yet it is regarded as a totally irrelevant triviality, as a constraint arising from historically fabricated “roles”, and is therefore consigned to the “purely biological realm”, which has nothing to do with man as such. Accordingly, this “purely biological” dimension is treated as a thing that man can manipulate at will because it lies beyond the scope of what counts as human and spiritual (so much so that man can freely manipulate the coming into being of life itself). This treatment of “biology” as a mere thing is accordingly regarded as a liberation, for it enables man to leave bios behind, use it freely, and to be completely independent of it in every other respect, that is, to be simply a “human being” who is neither male nor female. But in reality man thereby strikes a blow against his deepest being. He holds himself in contempt, because the truth is that he is human only insofar as he is bodily, only insofar as he is man or woman. When man reduces this fundamental determination of his being to a despicable trifle that can be treated as a thing, he himself becomes a trifle and a thing, and his “liberation” turns out to be his degradation to an object of production. Whenever biology is subtracted from humanity, humanity itself is negated. Thus, the question of the legitimacy of maleness as such and of femaleness as such has high stakes: nothing less than the reality of the creature. Since the biological determinateness of humanity is least possible to hide in motherhood, an emancipation that negates bios is a particular aggression against the woman. It is the denial of her right to be a woman. Conversely, the preservation of creation is in this respect bound up in a special way with the question of woman. And the Woman in whom the “biological” is “theological”—that is, motherhood of God—is in a special way the point where the paths diverge.

b. Mary’s virginity, no less than her maternity, confirms that the “biological” is human, that the whole man stands before God, and that the fact of being human only as male and female is included in faith’s eschatological demand and its eschatological hope. It is no accident that virginity—although as a form of life it is also possible, and intended for, the man—is first patterned on the woman, the true keeper of the seal of creation, and has its normative, plenary form—which the man can, so to say, only imitate—in her.17

5. Marian Piety

The connections we have just outlined enable us finally to explain the structure of Marian piety. Its traditional place in the Church’s liturgy is Advent and then, in general, the feasts relating to the Christmas cycle: the Presentation of the Lord and the Annunciation.18

In our considerations so far, we have regarded the Marian dimension as having three characteristics. First, it is personalizing (the Church, not as a structure, but as a person and in person). Second, it is incarnational (the unity of bios, person, and relation to God; the ontological freedom of the creature vis-a-vis the Creator and of the “body” of Christ relative to the head). These two characteristics give the Marian dimension a third: it involves the heart, affectivity, and thus fixes faith solidly in the deepest roots of man’s being. These characteristics suggest Advent as the liturgical place of the Marian dimension, while their meaning in turn receives further illumination from Advent. Marian piety is Advent piety; it is filled with the joy of the expectation of the Lord’s imminent coming; it is ordered to the incarnational reality of the Lord’s nearness as it is given and gives itself. Ulrich Wickert says very nicely that Luke depicts Mary as twice heralding Advent—at the beginning of the Gospel, when she awaits the birth of her Son, and at the beginning of Acts, when she awaits the birth of the Church.19

However, in the course of history an additional element has become more and more pronounced. Marian piety is, to be sure, primarily incarnational and focused on the Lord who has come. It tries to learn with Mary to stay in his presence. But the feast of Mary’s Assumption into heaven, which gained in significance thanks to the dogma of 1950, accentuates the eschatological transcendence of the Incarnation. Mary’s path includes the experience of rejection (Mk 3:31-35; Jn 2:4). When she is given away under the Cross (Jn 19:26), this experience becomes a participation in the rejection that Jesus himself had to endure on the Mount of Olives (Mk 14:34) and on the Cross (Mk 15:34). Only in this rejection can the new come to pass; only in a going away can the true coming take place (Jn 16:7). Marian piety is thus necessarily a Passion-centered piety. In the prophecy of the aged Simeon, who foretold that a sword would pierce Mary’s heart (Lk 2:35), Luke interweaves from the very outset the Incarnation and the Passion, the joyful and the sorrowful mysteries. In the Church’s piety, Mary appears, so to speak, as the living Veronica’s veil, as an icon of Christ that brings him into the present of man’s heart, translates Christ’s image into the heart’s vision, and thus makes it intelligible. Looking toward the Mater assumpta, the Virgin Mother assumed into heaven, Advent broadens into eschatology. In this sense, the medieval expansion of Marian piety beyond Advent into the whole ensemble of the mysteries of salvation is entirely in keeping with the logic of biblical faith.

We can, in conclusion, derive from the foregoing a threefold task for education in Marian piety:

a. It is necessary to maintain the distinctiveness of Marian devotion precisely by keeping its practice constantly and strictly bound to Christology, In this way, both will be brought to their proper form.

b. Marian piety must not withdraw into partial aspects of the Christian mystery, let alone reduce that mystery to partial aspects of itself. It must be open to the whole breadth of the mystery and become itself a means to this breadth.

c. Marian piety will always stand within the tension between theological rationality and believing affectivity. This is part of its essence, and its task is not to allow either to atrophy. Affectivity must not lead it to forget the sober measure of ratio, nor must the sobriety of a reasonable faith allow it to suffocate the heart, which often sees more than naked reason. It was not for nothing that the Fathers understood Matthew 5:8 as the center of their theological epistemology: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The organ for seeing God is the purified heart. It may just be the task of Marian piety to awaken the heart and purify it in faith. If the misery of contemporary man is his increasing disintegration into mere bios and mere rationality, Marian piety could work against this “decomposition” and help man to rediscover unity in the center, from the heart.

________

1 See on this point J. Frings, Das Konzil und die moderne Gedankenwelt (Cologne, 1962), 31-37.

2 Typical of the contrast between the two attitudes, which extends far beyond the domain of Mariology, are the questions posed in J. A. Jungmann’s book, Die Frohhotschaft und die Glaubensverkündigung (Regensburg, 1936); the passionate reaction to this work, which at that time had to be withdrawn from the market, likewise sheds a very clear light on the situation. See the remarks on this episode penned by Jungmann in 1961, in B. Fischer and H. B. Meyer, eds. J.A. Jungmann: Bin Leben fur Liturgie und Kerygma (Innsbruck, 1975), 12-18.

3 See the magisterial presentation of R. Laurentin, La Question mariale (Paris, 1963). Significant, for example, is Pope John XXIII’s warning against certain practices or excessive special forms of piety, even of veneration of the Madonna (19). Such forms of piety “sometimes give a pitiful idea of the piety of our good people”. In the concluding allocution of the Roman Synod, the Pope repeated his warning against the sort of piety that gives the imagination free rein and contributes little to the concentration of the soul. “We wish to invite you to adhere to the more ancient and simpler practices of the Church.”

4 H. Rahner, Maria und die Kirche (Innsbruck, 1951); Rahner, Mater Ecclesia: Lobpreis der Kirche aus dem ersten Jahrtausend (Einsiedeln and Cologne, 1944).

5 A. Müller, Ecclesia-Maria: Die Einheit Marias und der Kirche (Fribourg, 1955).

6 K. Delahaye, Erneuerung der Seelsorgsformen aus der Sicht der frühen Patristik (Freiburg, 1958).

7 R. Laurentin, Court traité de théologie mariale (Paris, 1953); Laurentin, Structure et théologie de Luc 1-2 (Paris, 1957).

8 O. Semmelroth, Urbild der Kirche: Organischer Aufbau des Mariengeheimnisses (Würzburg, 1950); see also M. Schmaus, Katholische Dogmatik, vol. 5, Mariologie (Munich, 1955).

9 I have tried to show that in reality Geiselmann’s formulation of the question misses the core of the problem in: K. Rahner and J. Ratzinger, Offenbarung und Überlieferung (Freiburg, 1965), 25-69; see also my commentary on chapter 2 of Dei Verbum in LthK, supplementary volume 2, 515-28.

10 [In what follows, Ratzinger uses the word Kirche, Church, without the definite article. The reader should bear in mind that he is talking about Church in her personal, Marian reality — TRANS.]

11 See on this point the fundamental presentation of H.U. von Balthasar, “Who Is the Church?,” trans. A.V. Littledale with Alexander Dru, in von Balthasar, Spouse of the Word, Explorations in Theology 2 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 143-91.

12 See J. Ratzinger, “Kirche als Heilssakrament”, in J. Reikerstorfer, ed„ Zeit des Geistes (Vienna, 1977), 59-70; see also my Das neue Volk Gottes (Düsseldorf, 1969), 75-89.

13 See von Balthasar, “Who Is the Church”; see also the fine interpretation of the Annunciation to Mary in K. Woytyla, Zeichen des Widerspruchs (Zurich and Freiburg, 1979), 50f.

14 G. Söll, Mariologie, Handbuch der Dogmensgeschichte, vol. 4, pt. 3 (Freiburg, 1978).

15 On the title “Mother of the Church”, see W. Dürig, Maria-Mutter der Kirche (St. Ottilien, 1979).

16 See on this point I. de la Potterie’s impressive “La Mère de Jesus et la conception virginale du Pils de Dieu: Étude de théologie johannique”, Marianum 40 (1978): 41-90, esp. 45 and 89f.

17 On the unity of the biological, the human, and the theological, see La Potterie, “Mère de Jésus”, 89f. On the whole discussion, see also L. Bouyer, Woman in the Church, trans. Marilyn Teichert (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1979). This is also the place to mention a lovely observation in A. Luciani’s Ihr ergebener (Munich, 1978), 126. Luciani recounts a meeting with schoolgirls who objected to the alleged discrimination against women in the Church. In response, Luciani brings into relief the fact that Christ had a human mother but did not and could not have a human father: the perfecting of the creature as creature occurs in the woman, not in the man.

18 The new missal—in conformity with the ancient tradition—sees these two feasts as feasts of Christ. Notwithstanding this change, the feasts by no means lose their Marian content.

19 U. Wickert, “Maria und die Kirche”, Theologie und Glaube 68 (1978): 384-407; here, 402.

#mary the church at the source

[silmarillionwritersguild]

For this year's International Fanworks Day, the Organization for Transformative Works issued a "10 challenge" for fandom history, requesting "10 things" essays about fandom.

In this month's Cultus Dispatches column, Dawn takes on that challenge. In her own tenth year of studying Tolkien fanfiction and its history, she has selected (after much angst) ten key "moments" that influenced the fandom's history.

Tolkien-based fanfiction has existed for more than seven decades. What has kept fans interested in drawing from a seemingly bottomless well of stories about this imagined world? While, of course, a lot of it is the world itself (you're probably not reading this if you don't find the legendarium deep and worth exploring!), some of it comes from circumstances well outside anything Tolkien, his Estate, fans, and fandom had anything to do with.

You can read Dawn's "ten things" essay "10 Important Moments in Tolkien Fandom History" here.

#silmarillion writers' guild #cultus dispatches #fandom history #tolkien fandom history #ifd2024

[silmarillionwritersguild]

For the past several months on our Cultus Dispatches column about Tolkien fan studies, we have been looking at canon and authority. This has begun to shade into fanon and fan authority. Historically, these have been complicated topics in the Tolkien fandom, generating disdain from some even as others gleefully embrace fan-created elements in the fanworks they read, write, and view.

We are looking to hear from you about your perspectives on fanon and other fan-generated elements in fanworks! Fandom Voices is a periodic project that is a part of Cultus Dispatches and seeks fan perspectives on topics related to the fandom. If you read, view, or create fanworks, you are eligible to participate. Note that the question is very open-ended and intentionally so! We welcome anything you wish to share about fanon in Tolkien-based fanworks.

You can learn more and share your thoughts on fanon here.

#cultus dispatches #tolkien #silmarillion #lord of the rings #the hobbit #fan studies #fanon

[silmarillionwritersguild]

Cultus Dispatches is winding up a series of articles on canon, ending with a sub-series on fanon, or fan-generated theories. As the series has showed, fanworks creators put quite a lot of stock in the ideas of their fellow fans—more even than they do Tolkien scholars, filmmakers, or even Christopher Tolkien.

Yet fanons and headcanons—fanon's less sprawling cousin among fandom terms for fan-generated theories—can be contentious in fan spaces. While most don't rise to the level of Balrog-wings in terms of the heat they generate, debates over fanons and headcanons are common in fandom spaces. As we continue to understand the role of canon—and more specifically fan-generated theories and authority—in fanworks communities, Dawn spoke with Scedasticity, the creator of the Silmarillion Headcanon Survey, to get a sense of what insights her work with fan theories can give.

You can read the interview "Theorycrafting: Interview with Scedasticity of the 'Silmarillion Headcanon Survey'" here.

#cultus dispatches #tolkien #silmarillion #lord of the rings #the hobbit #fan studies #fanon

[silmarillionwritersguild]

Fans who have been reading and writing Tolkien-based fanfiction for more than ten years quite possibly remember a time when "femslash" wasn't even a term. While slash sites nominally accepted it, it really wasn't being written, and it's no wonder: As the last several Cultus Dispatches columns in our series on writing about women in fanfiction have detailed, the Tolkien fandom went through a pair of phases where writing about women and writing slash were controversial acts. Caught in the crosshairs of this dual intolerance (it was about ladies! and it was gay!!!), femslash really didn't stand a chance.

But, as we also detailed in last month's interview with Elleth, a concerted effort by fans to not just normalize but celebrate writing about women—and femslash in particular—has pushed back the tides of intolerance and introduced a whole new genre to the fandom. This month's column Femslash Is a Political Act (and Other Observations of Tolkien Fandom's Genre Non Grata) by @dawnfelagund looks at Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data about femslash: how many people write it, how many people read it, and who exactly are among those groups. The results show that femslash has skyrocketed in popularity among readers in recent years, portending that maybe it won't always be the new genre on the block (much less a "genre non grata"), possibly due to its use as a political expression by fans who feel marginalized based on gender, sexual orientation, or both.

#cultus dispatches #tolkien #tolkien fanfiction #femslash #tolkien fandom history #tolkien fanfiction survey

[silmarillionwritersguild]

Although Star Trek and media fandom are often credited as the beginning of fanfiction, the first fanfiction texts are much older than that and oriented in book fandoms. (The first fanfics are older even than the term fanfiction!) The first two known Tolkien fanfics appeared in the 1960 fanzine I Palantir, and they couldn't be more different.

This month's Cultus Dispatches column analyzes these two old fics, in particular how they illustrate the fan studies concept of affirmational and transformational fandom. Transformational fandom is often depicted as the fertile field where fanworks grow, but Tolkien fanworks (and probably many other fandoms' fanworks as well) defy this, drawing on affirmational elements oriented in mastery of canon and consideration of Tolkien's authority. The earliest Tolkien fanfics not only show how both "types of fandom" can give rise to fanworks but how, even in fanworks that clearly belong to one or the other, elements of the other fandom approach are essential to making a particular story work.

You can read the article "Affirmational Fandom, Transformational Fandom, and Two Old Tolkien Fanfics" here.

#tolkien #tolkien fandom history #fandom history #tolkien fanzines #george heap #arthur r weir #cultus dispatches

[silmarillionwritersguild]

Tolkien's canon is complicated. That's an understatement. There are dozens of books presenting multiple versions—some of them contradictory, difficult to date, and sometimes hard to even read—and that's before one considers the many adaptations, fanworks and fan interpretations, scholarship, and myriad other "takes" on Middle-earth.

This month's Cultus Dispatches column is one of our Fandom Voices columns, where we present a question or two to the community in an attempt to capture a range of fan experiences with a topic. We asked participants how they define canon and, if they make fanworks, how they use that canon in their fanworks. We received a record number of responses, many of them going into great depth, and so will be dividing this iteration of Fandom Voices into two columns, beginning with how fans define Tolkien's canon. However, you can read all of the responses now.

How Tolkien fans define canon mirrors the complexity of the canon itself. We agree on very little (although many people noted the value of different approaches and the importance of tolerance), but the result is a decades-strong fandom where vibrant discussion and creative interpretation of the legendarium have lulled but never completely ceased. Respondents wrangled with how to handle the canon's many contradictions, the place of Christopher Tolkien's editorial work, the historical and mythical framework of the legendarium and the impact of that approach, and where adaptations and fanworks belong in terms of canon, among many other issues raised and discussed.

You can read the first part of "Fandom Voices: Defining Canon and Using Canon in Fanworks" here.

Also note that our Fandom Voices surveys never close. If you didn't get a chance to share your views and want to, it is not too late! We will continue to add new responses to the collection as they come in (including pulling from new responses for the second part of the article. You can respond to the "Defining Canon" survey here.

Finally, we are in the midst of a series of Cultus Dispatches articles focusing on canon in the Tolkien fandom. Cultus Dispatches is always open to contributions from all members of the fandom, so if you know of a creator or fanwork that takes an interesting approach to canon, or if you have another idea related to canon and fandom, contact our moderators and pitch your idea! Our reference editors will support new researchers and writers through the process, so don't let unfamiliarity with research writing dissuade you from sharing your ideas with us.

#cultus dispatches #fandom voices #fan studies

[silmarillionwritersguild]

"Fandom" is a huge construct, and every imaginable way of engaging fannishly with a text has probably been tried by at least one person (and likely many persons). In this month's Cultus Dispatches column, Dawn Walls-Thumma looks at data from the 2020 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey related to how participants engage in the Tolkien fandom beyond reading and writing fanfiction.

What kinds of fannish activities are common among readers and writers of Tolkien fanfic? Less common? Does this differ whether the participant reads fic or writes it as well?

You can read this month's article "Things Tolkien Fanfiction Readers and Writers Like to Do (Other Than Fanfiction)" here.

#cultus dispatches

[silmarillionwritersguild]

Fanfiction and original fiction are sometimes depicted as different, separate forms of writing. In this month's Cultus Dispatches column, using data from the 2015 and 2020 Tolkien Fanfiction Surveys, Dawn Felagund looks at the various iterations that exist between canon-compliant fanfiction and original fiction. Writers may, for example, push the boundaries of canon in original directions or invent their own original characters. They may write in other fandoms or even cross fandoms together. Do these tendencies predict whether or not a writer will also create original fiction, as well as fanfiction?

You can read "Beyond Borders: Canon Deviations, Multifandoms, and Original Content" here.

#cultus dispatches