Welcome to SPACE, our adult continuing education program which offers interactive monthly courses for personal enrichment! Learn more here.
Mixed Lecture/Discussion
Medium intensity
Days and Times
As soon as we obtain enough interest in this class we will be in touch to work out a meeting time that works for the group. Thank you for keeping your June 2026 availability up to date!
This class needs more votes by May 1 to get confirmed.
This module is a standing candidate which means it will be ready to launch as soon as it gets enough interest. Token holders can set aside a Token to reserve their seat for class and help it get confirmed.
This module provides a broad survey of Oz's remarkable longevity as a franchise over the 20th and 21st centuries. We will discuss how Oz operates as a quintessentially American fairy tale that, like all fairy tales, is ripe for reinterpretation by each new generation.
Course Outline:
Course Outline:
-
Week One
- Session 1: Introduction to L. Frank Baum and the Oz franchise/The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1900)
- Session 2: Bringing Oz to the big screen — The Wizard of Oz (dir. Victor Fleming, 1939)
- Session 3: Oz as 1970s Musical Extravaganza -- The Wiz (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1978)
- Session 4: Oz as 1980s Dark Fantasy -- iReturn to Oz (dir. Walter Murch, 1985)
- Session 5: Oz as Literary Fiction -- Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire
- Session 6: Oz Reinterpreted for the 21st Century: Wicked — Part One (dir. John Chu, 2024)
- Session 7: Oz Reinterpreted for the 21st Century, continued: Wicked — For Good (dir. John Chu, 2025)
- Session 8: Oz as American mythology — screening clips of other Ozadaptations not previously covered, as we discuss the question "What makes Oz so pervasive in American culture?"
Required Texts
Students will require access to the films mentioned in the module outline.
Check out Current and Upcoming offerings from:
