Wade Center Lecture explores ‘Fantastic Five’ writers’ views on justice in fantasy literature

On Thursday, Jan. 29, the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College presents the 2026 Wade Center Hansen Series Lecture Part I. “The Horns of Elfland: On Fairy-Story Justice,” a lecture by Dr. Jim Beitler and a response by Dr. Kimberly Sasser, associate professor of English, at 7 p.m.

Throughout much of the 20th century, the literary establishment frequently dismissed works of fantasy as insignificant, juvenile, and less worthy than more modern and realistic works.

But the authors of the Marion E. Wade Center knew better. For them, such works were never just fantasy. Fantasy mattered to them, both as a high form of art and as a means of practicing their faith. Several of the Wade authors defended fantasy literature in their essays and literary criticism, and — as many critics and scholars have noted — they turned to genre fiction again and again to express themselves creatively, explore their deepest convictions, and “steal past [the] watchful dragons” of religiosity.

What scholars haven’t fully considered, however, is the relationship between these authors’ writings and their conceptions of justice. In these three lectures, Dr. Jim Beitler looks to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, and George MacDonald with questions of justice in mind.

With the help of these “Fantastic Five,” we’ll see that fantasy’s otherworlds have much to teach us about rights and wrongs, just and unjust societies, and what it means to give people their due.

In response to critiques of fantasy literature, several members of the Fantastic Five came to its defense, employing academic expertise, storytelling skill, and apologetic acuity to explain why fantasy matters.

While these defenses may seem at first glance to have little to do with questions of justice, justice is, in fact, an underlying theme of many of their arguments. In this first lecture, we’ll look closely at J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous “On Fairy-Stories” and other defenses of fantasy written by the Wade authors, exploring what these arguments reveal to us about the relationship between fantasy literature and giving people their due.

Dr. Jim Beitler ’02 & ’04 is Director of the Marion E. Wade Center and Professor of English at Wheaton College, where he holds the Marion E. Wade Chair of Christian Thought. His scholarship focuses on the rhetoric of Christian witness and writing as a spiritual activity, looking to C.S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, Desmond Tutu, and other exemplary communicators as guides for faithful practice.

Beitler is the author of three books — Charitable Writing: Cultivating Virtue Through Our Words (with Richard Hughes Gibson, 2020), Seasoned Speech: Rhetoric in the Life of the Church (2019), and Remaking Transitional Justice in the United States (2013) — and he teaches undergraduate courses on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien and Environmental Stewardship, and Christianity and Fantasy. He is the co-editor of Sites of Writing: Essays in Honor of Anne Ruggles Gere (with Sarah Ruffing Robbins, forthcoming 2025), and he is a co-host of the Wade Center Podcast.

This event is free and open to the public and will take place in Marion E. Wade Center, Room 130 Bakke Auditorium, located at 351 E. Lincoln Ave. in Wheaton on the Northwest corner of campus at the intersection of Washington Street and Lincoln Avenue. Parking is located in the lot on the east side of Washington Street. For more information, contact the Wade Center at 630.752.5908 or wade@wheaton.edu.