Returning to Oz: The Afterlife of Dorothy

Thursday 7 February 2013
International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester, United Kingdom

Registration is now open: please visit the Hic Dragones website for more information.

Programme

9.30-10.00 Registration

10.00-11.00 Keynote Paper: Geoff Ryman (University of Manchester)
Harrowing the Land of the Dead: Oz, Was and Joseph Campbell

11.00-11.30 Coffee

11.30-1.00 If I Only Had a Heart: Storytelling and Oz
Chair: TBC

Matthew Freeman (University of Nottingham): Across the Rainbow: L. Frank Baum’s Land of Oz as the Historical Origins of Transmedia Storytelling

Hannah Priest (Hic Dragones/University of Manchester): The Once and Future Dorothy: Intertextuality in Tin Man

Alexander Berezkin (Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok): Dorothy Gale and her twin Ellie Smith in a magical land of the USSR

Dee Michel (Independent Researcher): Gay Folkloric Beliefs About the MGM Film and Judy Garland

1.00-2.00 Lunch

2.00-3.30 If I Only Had a Brain: Theorizing Oz
Chair: TBC

Johanna Schorn (University of Cologne): “Just you and I / Defying Gravity”: A Queer Reading of Wicked

Ashley Wilson (University of Cambridge): East or West, Home is Best: Using Place/Space Theory to Identify the 1939 Wizard of Oz as the True ‘American Fairy Tale’

Sorcha Ní Fhlainn (Manchester Metropolitan University): The Oz you haven’t see before!’: The Gothic Sublime in Return to Oz (1985)

3.30-4.00 Coffee

4.00-5.30 If I Only Had the Nerve: Merit and Madness
Chair: TBC

Maria Cohut (University of Warwick): The Grotesque and the Sinister in The Wizard of Oz: Perpetuating Christian Models of Merit

Karen Graham (University of Aberdeen): ‘Now what are we going to do about Dorothy?’: The Judgement of Dorothy in Gregory Maguire’s The Wicked Years series

Carys Crossen (University of Manchester): We’re off to See the Psychiatrist: Madness, Feminine Symbols and Female Power in Disney’s Return to Oz

5.30-5.45 Short Break 5.45-6.45 Special Guest (via Skype): Gregory Maguire (tbc)

6.45 Conference Close

For more information about the conference, or to register, visit the Hic Dragones website or email the conference convenors.