CANTON, Mo. — Dr. Alissa Burger, assistant professor of English, director of writing across the curriculum and director of retention at Culver-Stockton College, recently was interviewed by Istanbulberlin.com about the concept of “home” and how it has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Burger spoke with Sedef Ilgic, a reporter with Istanbulberlin.com, on May 28 through Zoom, an online video conferencing platform. Ilgic had interviewed Burger a couple of years ago for TRT World, a Turkish international news channel broadcast in English. They talked about the importance of home and its role in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” an American children’s novel written by L. Frank Baum in the early 1900s that was later turned into a musical and a movie.
“Our conversation focused on changing representations of home, both historically (from the Wizard of Oz to now) and specifically within the context of our current pandemic, when home has taken on some new meanings, both positive and negative,” Burger said. “Given my work in horror, we also talked a bit about the meaning of home within the context of haunted houses and the interconnection of past and present, home and family in those hauntings.”
According to its website, Istanbulberlin.com is “a space for encounters that takes inspiration from two multicultural cities — Istanbul, Turkey, and Berlin, Germany — that foster culture and arts.” Instanbulberlin.com started publishing in May 2020.
Read the entire interview online here.
Burger recently completed her fourth year at Culver-Stockton. She is an expert on her dissertation topic, “Trajectory of the American Myth: Race, Gender, Home and Magic from The Wizard of Oz to Wicked,” and she wrote a book, “The Wizard of Oz as American Myth: A Critical Study of Six Versions of the Story, 1900-2007,” which was published in 2012. Burger also is a well-known expert on the work of author Stephen King, and her book, “Teaching Stephen King: Horror, the Supernatural and New Approaches in Literature,” was published in 2016.
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