Why are you here? Asked the Cheshire Cat. We are all Mad here!
I am very excited to offer classes on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll in May of 2025 at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Richmond (Virginia). I have been encouraged by all of the made Litchatte participants who viewed my posting here last week on why I have chosen to focus on the Alice books again, now that I am a senior citizen. It should still be online for your viewing. Whether you can join me in person or want to follow my Adventures with Alice through this forum, you are welcome!
You may be wondering, what sort of people will review the current online forum or come to this class? I hope to be able to answer this class after we journey through Wonderland with a fresh approach. We will at least find out what the Cheshire Cat advised Alice on that question. These books have fascinated me throughout my life. In preparing for these classes, I found that there is so much rich material to present in the first book, that I can’t cover both Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass in the same upcoming May 2025 series. Instead, what I would like to do in this upcoming series is to offer two in-depth classes about Alice in Wonderland and introduce Alice Through the Looking Glass near the end of the second class. I plan to offer a brief overview of Alice in Wonderland at Osher in the fall of 2025 and then lead two classes on Alice Through the Looking Glass. I will continue writing about these books on my website and invite you to respond to me with your reflections and questions. No matter when you last read Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, please re-read it now. I can assure you that you will find it a much more profound book as a senior adult than when you read it in a previous life stage. If you don’t have a copy, you may read it for free online at www.gutenberg.org
Approaching Alice:
As you read either of Carroll’s books, you need to approach them with the understanding that Lewis Carroll wrote them applying his satirical approach to 19th-century Victorian values. Alice lives in that period but enters a different world through a portal where everything she has been taught has been turned around. You will also then need to abandon your understanding of the realities of our present age as you try to interpret this fantasy and logic book. Alice is like an anthropologist entering a strange land, and we can also read them with that type of open-minded approach.
What I will Cover in these Upcoming Classes:
The life of Rev. Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) 1827 -1898
Alice Liddell, Dodgson, and Alice in Wonderland (how their lives intertwined)
Illustrations of the Original Alice books by John Tenniel
The Disney Alice Adventures and other Popular forms of Alice books
Detailed Readings and Considerations of Tenniel’s Illustrations
There are various ways to approach these books. You may choose. You can read them as:
Fantasy or Fun Novels
A Hero’s Journey
Character & Plot Studies
Satires
Logic Studies
Critiques of 19th-Century Social, Cultural, Educational, and Political Values
Psychological Explorations & Dream Studies.
For any input or questions, you may write me at ellisonms2@alumni.vcu.edu
Dr. Murray Ellison/MA in English Literature
Primary Reference Used: The Story of Alice by Robert Douglas – Fairhurst, Harvard University Press, 2015
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