Let Us Now Praise Famous Orcs: Simple Humanity in Tolkien\u27s Inhuman Creatures

A careful study of “the orcish question,” in which the author investigates their behavior, conversations, and interactions with other races in order to propose some challenging conclusions about racism, souls, and Tolkien’s purpose in creating orcs the way he did

Sauron: Weirdly Sexy

A popular meme depict Galadriel and Frodo admitting that Sauron is weirdly sexy, a humorous allusion to The Rings of Power’s Halbrand. The show\u27s controversial revelation of Halbrand as Sauron highlights the differences between Tolkien’s construction of Second and Third Age Sauron as an attractive or admirable leader compared to Peter Jackson’s portrayal of him as a monster or disembodied fiery eyeball. This, in turn, has implications for the geopolitical order of Middle-earth in which many people legitimately might wish to be on Sauron’s side. Acknowledging Sauron\u27s sexiness may allow us to see Tolkien\u27s world system in a new light

Monstrous Accumulation: Topographies of Fear in an Era of Globalization

The predominance of the horror genre, broadly conceived, in recent years attests to the profound sense of anxiety and dread permeating late capitalist societies. As the processes and effects of globalization become more viscerally experienced, they are also often rendered invisible or unknowable, and individuals and groups find themselves subject to an immense array of forces beyond their control. The contemporary scene is crowded with monsters, from alien invaders to the zombie apocalypse, set against the backdrop of darkly fantastic landscapes and dystopian visions. Drawing upon a variety of Marxist cultural theory, Robert T. Tally Jr. explores the topographies of fear generated by this monstrous accumulation, and argues for a fantastic Marxist critique capable of addressing the existential dread and structural conditions for its possibility. Tally maintains that even the “real world” may be fruitfully analyzed and evaluated in terms of the fantastic, outlining a radical alterity that subtends the image of the real. He provides an innovative reading of the present cultural climate and offers an alternative vision for critical theory and practice in a moment in which, as has been famously observed, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism

Letters: Stalin\u27s Orcs

Following up on his article in Mythlore 29.1/2, the author summarizes a recent discovery that Josef Stalin once attempted to create a superior species of warrior by cross-breeding humans and apes

Hermenéutica y política: releyendo el inconsciente político

As Karl Marx said in the eleventh of his “Theses on Feuerbach”, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”. The urgency, as well as the truth of this statement, is undoubtedly as powerful today as when Marx first wrote it. However, as a popular catchphrase frequently cited by radical thinkers and activists, Thesis 11 has unfortunately become a relatively simplistic rejection of the theory in favor of a somewhat anti-intellectual view of praxis. Such is the danger of a wisdom expressed in a way that it can fit on a bumper sticker, a fate that Marx himself probably never imagined for this scathing remark. Marxism, after all, implies the dialectical unity of theory and practice, and Marx himself, of course, spent his life engaged in critical analysis or interpretation of modern capitalist societies, while remaining committed to the movement dedicated to changing the world. The essence of Thesis 11, in fact, lies not so much in the opposition between theory and practice, but in the connection that Marx makes between interpreting the world and changing it. Although interpretation is not an end, it is absolutely essential for any project to be able to imagine alternatives and transform the status quo. In this situation, hermeneutics inevitably acquires a political and critical importance. Arguably, it always carried such weight, but it has become more urgent in our time. Perhaps the very act of interpretation is itself also a political act, which is intimately connected with the project of criticism.Como dijo Karl Marx, en el undécimo de sus Tesis sobre Feuerbach, “Los filósofos solo han interpretado el mundo, de varias maneras; el punto, sin embargo, es cambiarlo” (p. 145). La urgencia, así como la verdad de esta declaración es, sin duda, tan poderosa hoy como cuando Marx la escribió por primera vez, pero como un eslogan popular frecuentemente citado por pensadores y activistas radicales, la Tesis 11 desafortunadamente se ha convertido en un rechazo relativamente simplista de la teoría a favor de una visión algo antintelectual de la praxis. Tal es el peligro de la sabiduría así expresada que puede caber en una calcomanía de parachoques, un destino que el propio Marx probablemente nunca imaginó para esta mordaz observación. El marxismo, después de todo, implica la unidad dialéctica de la teoría y la práctica, y el propio Marx, por supuesto, pasó su vida comprometido con el análisis crítico o la interpretación de las sociedades capitalistas modernas, al tiempo que seguía comprometido con el movimiento dedicado a cambiar el mundo. El quid de la Tesis 11, de hecho, reside no tanto en la oposición entre teoría y práctica, como en la conexión que hace Marx entre interpretar el mundo y cambiarlo. La interpretación, si bien no es un fin en sí mismo, es absolutamente fundamental para cualquier proyecto para imaginar alternativas y transformar el statu quo. En esta situación, la hermenéutica inevitablemente adquiere una importancia política y crítica. Podría decirse que siempre tuvo tal peso, pero se ha vuelto más apremiante en nuestro tiempo, tal vez, que el mismo acto de interpretación es en sí mismo también un acto político, que está íntimamente conectado con el proyecto de crítica

Three Rings for the Elven-kings: Trilogizing Tolkien in Print and Film

Discusses the division of works meant to be whole into trilogies; primarily Tolkien’s lengthy novel, split into two volumes due to printing considerations, and Peter Jackson’s film trilogies of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit

\u3ci\u3eTolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth\u3c/i\u3e by Robert Stuart

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Formed by Place: Spatiality, Irony, and Empire in Conrad’s ‘An Outpost of Progress’

In its ironic narrative and distinctive geography, Joseph Conrad’s 1897 short story ‘An Outpost of Progress’ is well suited for geocritical analysis, insofar as Conrad demonstrates the degree to which space and place affect both the characters in the story and style of the text. Focusing on the unique setting—the ‘outpost’—in which the events take place, Rutledge and Tally argue that Conrad’s tale employs an ironic narrator in order to highlight the tale’s distinctive spatiality, particularly with respect to a geopolitical system that too neatly divides the spaces of the globe into civilized and barbaric regions. The spatiality of ‘An Outpost of Progress’ can be seen in the geographical aspects of the narrative, with the specific site or heterotopia of the ‘outpost’ situated at the edge of a territory coded as ‘barbaric’ or ‘uncivilized,’ thus connecting the colonized domain in central Africa to the metropolitan society of northwestern Europe, largely unseen, but implicitly present throughout the story. But this spatiality may also be observed in its formal or stylistic elements, especially in the point of view and voice of the narrator, as the perspective shifts from omniscient overseer to ironic commentator and then to a free indirect style in which the distance between narrator and subject is dramatically reduced. In this way, Conrad produces an ironic, spatial narrative that highlights, in both content and form, the absurdity of the imperialist ‘civilizing mission’ in Africa

Nine Tolkien Scholars Respond to Charles W. Mills’s “The Wretched of Middle-Earth: An Orkish Manifesto”

In spite of being written over three decades ago, Mills’s posthumously published “Manifesto” not only anticipates but transcends the majority, if not the totality, of the scholarship on Tolkien, race, and racisms which has been published since 2003. Scholars in philosophy and related fields familiar with Mills’s work will recognize that the essay was a “critical exploration of [how] a fictional racial hierarchy strikingly illuminates the ongoing influence of certain old racist ideas on our present day [sic] social realities.” Reid has invited a wide-ranging Tolkienists who have read the essay to respond, briefly, on the significance of the essay to their wor