The original manuscripts of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings are located at Marquette University in Wisconsin, USA. William „Bill“ Fliss, curator and archivist at Marquette University, conducts interviews with Tolkien fans. We’ve turned the tables and interviewed him.
William „Bill“ Fliss works as an archivist and curator at Marquette University, Wisconsin, USA. For years, he has been managing the Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection project, during which Tolkien fans are being interviewed. Read on to find out what exactly this project is about, how you can participate, and more!
Questions
Teilzeithelden: Hello Bill! Thank you for taking the time to sit down with Teilzeithelden. Before we get into the discussion, please tell us a few words about yourself.
Bill: Well, I am married, although we don’t have any kids. I come from a large family; I am the youngest of six children. I have lived my entire life in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Only in the last decade or so have I had an opportunity to travel. Otherwise, I have been a rather parochial little hobbit in my small corner of southeastern Wisconsin—not xenophobic, just a little isolated. As a child and a young adult, I enjoyed exploring the world through books.
Teilzeithelden: You work as an archivist and curator of the J.R.R. Tolkien Collection at Marquette University in Wisconsin, USA. What exactly is your job as an archivist and curator and what is stored in the J.R.R. Tolkien Collection?
Bill: I have been curator of the Tolkien Collection since 2012, although I have been employed as an archivist at Marquette since 2003. I assumed the role when the previous curator left for a job elsewhere. I was a Tolkien fan from a young age, so that helped me connect to the Collection. I came with a solid knowledge of Tolkien’s legendarium, but I have had much to learn about everything contained within Marquette’s collection.
At the heart of the Tolkien Collection are the original manuscripts that Marquette University purchased directly from Professor Tolkien in 1957. We own the manuscripts for The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Farmer Giles of Ham, and Mr. Bliss. It is an enormous collection, over 11,000 pages, with most of it taken up by the Rings manuscripts. If you are familiar with Christopher Tolkien’s History of Middle-earth series, he wrote the volumes on The Lord of the Rings using Marquette’s Collection.
Over the past 40+ years the Tolkien Collection has grown beyond the manuscripts to include secondary works (theses, books, articles, etc.) on Tolkien as well as records that document the history of Tolkien fandom.
My basic job is to continue building the collection and to assist researchers in using what we have acquired.
Teilzeithelden: Besides the J.R.R. Tolkien Collection, there is another Tolkien-related project going on at Marquette University. Please tell us about the J.R.R. Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection. How does it work?
Bill: I mentioned a moment ago that we seek to document Tolkien fandom at Marquette. This began as far back as the late 1960s when we started acquiring Tolkien fan magazines (fanzines). Tolkien fandom went online by 2000, shifting away from the old print publications. I don’t need to tell your readers that the internet has had an enormous impact on Tolkien fandom! It takes my breath away when I consider how social media has helped Tolkien fans to connect and build community.
I created the Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection as another way to document the fandom, beyond simply harvesting Tolkien-related websites. The idea grew out of the fact that we are a pilgrimage site for Tolkien fans. Tolkien fans from around the world who are passing through Milwaukee will stop by Marquette to get some glimpse of the Tolkien Collection. After meeting these people and hearing their stories, it dawned on me that I should be recording these testimonials!
That led me to begin capturing brief (up to 3-minute) testimonials from fans. I ask the fans to think about 3 questions while they are talking: When did you first encounter Tolkien’s works? Why do you like him? What, if anything, has he meant to you? I record the interviews, create transcripts and then publish the sound recordings and transcripts on Marquette’s library website.
Teilzeithelden: I understand anyone can participate, independent of age, location or level of fandom. If our readers wanted to participate, how can they arrange that?
Bill: Yes, anyone can participate as long as they self-identify as a Tolkien fan. Fans come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of intensity! All are welcome. Each person must sign an agreement form donating the interview to Marquette. If a person is under 18 years of age, a parent or guardian must sign the form on their behalf. I restrict access to the interview until the year of their 18th birthday.
If your readers want to participate—and I would welcome their participation—they can claim a time slot on our scheduling page. Since the testimonials are so brief, the entire process takes only a few minutes of their time. I will send a Zoom meeting link.
Teilzeithelden: Since the project has been up for quite some time, you already went through a lot of interviews. Is there something that stood out to you during an interview, or are there any common findings across interviewees besides the shared passion for Tolkien?
Bill: When I was growing up, Tolkien had a reputation for being a writer for boys. Not many girls seemed to be reading him. Maybe they were, but I was unaware of it. So, I was surprised and delighted to see so many female contributors to the collection—roughly half the fans.
There are many outstanding interviews so far. Some almost brought me to tears when I first listened to them. The interviews can get very personal. A common theme across many interviews is that Tolkien’s works have helped people cope with hardship. He brings hope to people. As more than one contributor has commented, “If Frodo and Sam could get to Mount Doom, I can deal with my situation.” I am amazed at the strength he gives to people who are dealing with tough situations: the pandemic, addictions, disabilities, bullying, etc.
Teilzeithelden: At some point, the Oral History Collection will be done. 6.000 interviews will be published. What is going to happen with the interviews? What kind of scientific research will be done and how will the results be presented?
Bill: I hope I reach 6,000 interviews! On some days I doubt I will get there. I have been adding the interviews to the collection in éoreds of 120, echoing the gradually mustering of the Rohirrim. The interviews will remain published online indefinitely for people to study and enjoy. In addition to the digital site, I have been compiling the interview text and metadata into a simple dataset on Marquette’s institutional repository, where it can be downloaded for analysis by digital humanists.
I cannot predict the research that may come out of this project. I leave it to others to do that work. My job is to make available the data for people to mine. There are many interesting questions that might be pursued. What words are most often used to describe Tolkien’s works? What impact did the Peter Jackson films have on fan formation? How do people relate to him differently at different points in their lives? These are just a few.
Teilzeithelden: Thank you for introducing our readers to the project! Now, let us dive into some questions that relate directly to Tolkien. Would you take the time to share your own fandom experience? If so, when (and how) did you first encounter the works of J.R.R. Tolkien?
Bill: Well, I am planning to reserve interview #6,000 for myself, so I don’t want to give too much away! Just joking. By the time that interview happens, my responses will probably be very different from these. But one thing that will not have changed is how I first came to his works. Like many people my age, my first exposure to Tolkien was through the animated Rankin Bass adaptation of The Hobbit that aired on American television in the late 1970s. I liked the story and eventually read the book. I read The Lord of the Rings at age eleven and enjoyed it, although I now realize that my understanding of it was extremally superficial. I read The Silmarillion at age fourteen and absolutely fell in love with it. It was my constant companion when I was a teenager. For years I thought I was the only person who enjoyed it more than The Lord of Rings. That’s another interesting thing to come out of the interviews—the large number of people for whom The Silmarillion is their favorite Tolkien book.
Teilzeithelden: Why are you a Tolkien fan? Since we do have more than three minutes time, I will add: Do you have any favourite theme, scene or character that you want to share with our audience?
Bill: In addition to being an archivist, I am also a student of history—in fact I am currently writing a doctoral dissertation on a topic totally unrelated to Tolkien—so on some basic level I suppose I have always been drawn most to the legendarium as a history to study and enjoy. It has given me many hours of delight. I am not a linguist. Tolkien’s invented languages, while I admire them, are not central to my own fan appreciation. The sense of history is what most captured me and held me. As I age, I find that the moral messages of the story speak louder to me.
Your add-on question is a huge one. I will choose favorite character, which is Faramir (sic). I like Faramir for a variety of reasons. For one thing, Tolkien gave him some of the best lines in The Lord of the Rings. The prose in the chapter “The Window on the West” is so rich. To me Faramir is a perfect blending of the warrior and scholar. He is a thoughtful man, a bookish man—yet he is also a person of action. He is a ‘contemplative in action’ and I find that attractive. Faramir embodies many virtues that I admire: Courage. Loyalty. Prudence. A respect for tradition. A respect for duty. Compassion. Justice. Humility. By no means is he the only character to exhibit these virtues, but Faramir has always been special to me. Faramir is not a Maia like Gandalf; he has no access to supernatural powers or insights. Unlike Aragorn, Faramir is not motivated by a grand desire to reunite the kingdoms and marry the person he loves. He is a man who knows himself, one who embodies the culture and values that made Númenor great, and he is fighting the good fight during a dark time when hope is in very short supply. I believe it’s people like Faramir who form the foundation of any good society. And so, for me, he’s been a source of inspiration and aspiration.
Teilzeithelden: And here is the last of the three questions that you ask: What has he meant to you?
Bill: A common response to this interview question is that his meaning changes throughout a person’s life. It has been no different for me. As a child he meant adventure and diversion. As a teenager he brought me comfort during that difficult transitional period. As an adult he has meant wise moral counsel spoken through his characters. Tolkien has probably meant the most to me in a professional sense. I now get to spend much of my working day thinking about him!
Teilzeithelden: Bill, thank you once more for taking the time for Teilzeithelden and going through all of our questions! Before we conclude this interview, is there anything else you want our readers to know?
Bill: Most of the fan testimonials in the collection are in English, but if people prefer to contribute in German, they are welcome to do so. I know some good translators.
Pictures: © Marquette University Archives
Layout: Melanie Maria Mazur
Proofreading: Nina Horbelt
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