Customer Reviews

Over the Rainbow: The Wizard of Oz As a Secular Myth of America (Mcgill Studies in the History of Religions)

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Although OVER THE RAINBOW first appeared in print almost a decade ago, it continues to have no equal in the interdisciplinary study of religion, film, and popular culture. Nathanson's subtitle is THE WIZARD OF OZ AS A SECULAR MYTH OF AMERICA. He takes great care to define terms such as "secular" and "myth," as well as that elusive but crucial word "religion." Thus the reader is engaged in a stimulating conversation with theorists like Gregor Goethals, John Wiley Nelson, Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner, Robert Bellah, Roland Barthes, Elaide, John Dominic Crossan and many others around a familiar -- but via Nathanson, always surprising -- common text, the 1939 film THE WIZARD OF OZ.

While Nathanson himself is a great admirer of the film, the importance of this study goes far beyond that particular production; it sets a standard of scholarship that is unrivaled in the field.

I have used this book in undergraduate religion and popular culture courses at two colleges in the northeast and also at the University of Alabama. It has been exceedingly helpful in introducing students to the religious character that lurks just below the surface of secular American culture -- what some scholars have called the "implicit" religiosity of popular culture. The book has opened students' eyes to religion in places they least expected to find it (indeed, some students even expect to encounter the Devil in productions that emanate from Hollywood). But it has also introduced them to perennial religious themes and enduring problems in the study of religion, thereby demonstrating to them that the academic study of religion is not only fascinating, it is also fun.