Events
Forthcoming and Past Dickens Society symposia
and sponsors:
As an Allied Organization officially affiliated with the MLA, the Dickens Society sponsors panels and social occasions at the annual MLA convention and at regional MLA conferences such as Northeast MLA (NeMLA), Midwest MLA (MMLA), and South Atlantic MLA (SAMLA). Panel organizers should send updates regarding their panel (rescheduling, cancellations, no-shows) and the finalized panel information to Lydia Craig (lcraig1@luc.edu), to post on the DS website.
MLA 2025
Location: New Orleans, LA
Date: January 9-12, 2025
Chair: Chris Louttit (Radboud University)
“Dickensian Cultures and Communities”
CFP: Dickens remains one of the most visible Anglophone authors, with his fiction adapted regularly for the stage and screen and frequently taught and discussed by scholars. His hypercanonicity has also inspired more diverse, ephemeral forms of engagement across a range of cultural contexts, from popular visual and material cultures, through to literary tourism and festivals, and on to the practices of collectors and fans in both analogue and online contexts. This session invites contributions that analyse an aspect or aspects of this vast and still relatively underexplored terrain.
Papers are encouraged that discuss ephemeral traces of the Dickensian across cultural contexts and temporal periods, whether in the author’s own time, in the period between his death and the end of the twentieth century, or in relation to contemporary (digital) culture.
Abstracts of 250-300 words and a short CV should be sent to the session chair Chris Louttit at chris.louttit@ru.nl by Friday, 22 March 2024.
NeMLA 2024
Location: Boston, MA
Date: March 8, 2024
Chair: Lydia Craig (Lake Land College)
“New Directions in Dickens Scholarship”
Presentations:
– “Exploring Charles Dickens’ Hard Times and A Christmas Carol Through the Lens of Ubuntu Philosophy,” Masumi Odari, University of Nairobi
– “A Tale of Two Cities: A Transatlantic Experiment,” Christian Lehmann, Bard High School Early College
– “Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, and the Moment of Class Consciousness,” Mark Fulk, Buffalo State University, SUNY
– “The Verse of Charles Dickens: Romanticism, Romance, and Ridiculousness,” Lydia Craig, Lake Land College
MLA 2024
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Date: January 6, 2024
Chair: James Armstrong, City College, City U of New York
“Joys and Sorrows of Attachment: Dickens and Lawrence”
Jointly sponsored with The D.H. Lawrence Society
Presentations:
– “The Spatial Intertextuality of Paris between Gaskell’s French Life and Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities,” Lisu Wang, U of Leicester
– “The Sorrows of the Lawrentian Persona and Its Attachment to Dickens’s David Copperfield,” Holly A. Laird, U of Tulsa
– “Dickens, Lawrence, and Readerly Entanglement,” Bridget Chalk, Manhattan College
NeMLA 2023
Location: Niagara Falls, NY, Sheraton Hotel
Date: March 23, 2023
Chair: Sean Grass, Rochester Institute of Technology
Session 10.30 “Dickens and Resilience”
– “Jolly Suffering and the Limits of Resilience in Martin Chuzzlewit and American Notes,” Nina Engelhardt, University of Stuttgart
– “‘Marshes and Dreams’: Country Landscapes in Dickens’s Bleak House,” Hannah LeClair, University of Pennsylvania
– “Little Doors and Little Dorrit: Hinged Resistance and Resilience in Solitary Confinement,” Rachel Sims, Phoenix College
-“An Uncaring Proposal: Appalling Resilience in Little Dorrit,” Bethan Stevens, University of Sussex
ESSE 2022
Seminar 14. “Dickens in Colour”
Location: Mainz, Germany
Dates: 29 August – 30 August 2022
Chairs: Matthias Bauer (Eberhard Karls University), Nathalie Vanfasse (Aix-Marseille Université), Angelika Zirker (Eberhard Karls University).
Session 1, Slot 1:
Presentations:
– “Welcome and General Introduction,” Matthias Bauer, Nathalie Vanfasse, and Angelika Zirker:
– “Dickens’s Reality Show: Chromophobia and the New World,” Francesca Orestano (Milan)
– “Collar, Choler, Colour, Colours,” Jeremy Tambling (Warsaw)
– “Hue, Affect, and Influence: What Colour Are Dickens’s Novels?” Sara Thornton (Paris)
Session 1, Slot 2:
Presentation:
– “Technicolour Dickens: Colourisation in Research and Practice,” Leon Litvack (Belfast)
Session 2, Slot 2:
Presentations:
– “Charles Dickens and the Colour Purple,” Jeremy Parrott (Independent Scholar)
– “The Yellow Leaf,” Franziska Quabeck (Münster)
– “Green Mounds, Blue Eyes, Black Death: A Digital Humanities Approach to Colours in Dickens,” Carolin Odebrecht (Independent Scholar) and Angelika Zirker (Tübingen)
Session 3, Slot 2:
Presentations:
– “Dickens’s Ambiguous Colours,” Matthias Bauer (Tübingen)
– “Bleak and Black London: Dickens’s Presentation of Poor Quarters,” Ewa Kujawska-Lis (Olsztyn)
– “‘[L]ooking, with their bright colours and ribbons, like a bed of flowers’: Of Tint and Taint in David Copperfield,” Céline Prest (Paris)
– “‘The prismatic hues of memory’: Visual StoryTelling and Chromatic Showmanship in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield,” Georges Letissier (Nantes)
NeMLA 2022
Session 12.3 “Dickens and Empathy” (Part 1)
Location: Baltimore, MD, Baltimore Marriott Waterfront
Date: Friday, 11 March 2022
Chair: Lydia Craig, Lake Land College
Presentations:
– “Dickens through the Lens of Tolerance, Tolerance through the Lens of Dickens,” Nina Engelhardt, University of Stuttgart
– “‘But such flesh, and so much blood!’: Dickens, the Empathetic Psychopath,” Andrew Halls, King’s College
– “Morality, Modernity, and Dickens in Bengal,” Sayan Chatterjee, Ohio University
-“Empathy as Allegory in Hard Times,” Marie Sanazaro, Princeton University
Session 14.4 “Dickens and Empathy” (Part 2)
Location: Baltimore, MD, Baltimore Marriott Waterfront
Date: Saturday, 12 March 2022
Chair: Lydia Craig, Lake Land College
Presentations:
– “Empathy or Self-Effacement?: Dickens’ Traumatized Angels,” Mackenzie Clinger, John Carroll University
– “‘Suffer, and Be Still:’ Pip’s Femme Bottomhood in Great Expectations” Margaret Speer, University of California, Irvine
– “’Pig, Get Out Of My Way:’ Madame Defarge’s Lack of Empathy and Lévinas’ Irreducible Alterity,” Adrianne Wojcik, Northern Virginia Community College
– “Paralyzed by Empathy? Another View of Ebenezer Scrooge,” Kari Daly, University of Connecticut-Storrs
NeMLA 2021
Session 15.18 “Transatlantic Dickens”
Location: Virtual
Date: Friday, 12 March 2021
Chair: Iain Crawford, University of Delaware
Presentations:
– “Take the Case of the Slaves on American Plantations’: Harold Skimpole’s Race in Bleak House,” Lydia Craig, Loyola University Chicago
– “Colorblind Victimhood and Class Sympathy: Dickens and the American Civil War,” Virginia Maresca, St. John’s University
– ” ‘The last grievance of the South’: Economic Slavery and Paternalism in A Christmas Carol,” Christian Gallichio, University of Georgia
MLA 2021
Session 226. “Hunger and Survival in Dickens”
Location: Virtual
Date: Friday, 8 January 2021
Chair: Sara A. Malton, Saint Mary’s University
Presentations:
– “Dickens and the Horrors of Cannibalism,” Goldie Morgentaler, U of Lethbridge
– “Survival Cannibalism as Liberal Paradigm in Great Expectations,” Emma Davenport, Duke U
– “A Young Vampire and an Old Wound: Hunger and Survival in ‘George Silverman’s Explanation,'” Emily Bell, Loughborough U
Session 183. “Sexual Violence, the Victorians, and #MeToo”
Location: Virtual
Date: Thursday, 7 January 2021
Chairs: Helena Michie, Rice University, Renee Fox, U of California, Santa Cruz
Speakers: Nora Gilbert (U of North Texas, Denton), Patrick R. O’Malley (Georgetown U), Amanda Paxton (Trent U, Durham), Erin Spampinato (Graduate Center, City U of New York), Doreen Thierauf (North Carolina Wesleyan C), Anna Torvaldsen (McGill U).
NeMLA 2020
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, Marriott Copley Place
Date: March 6, 2020
“Teaching Dickens Now” (10.31)
Chair: Diana Archibald, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Presentations:
– “Dickens in VR,” Jen Cadwallader, Randolph-Macon College
– “Dickens and Service-learning: Relevance for the Humanities Under Fire,” Diana Archibald, University of Massachusetts Lowell
– “Dickens and the Climate Crisis: The Business of Ordinary and Extraordinary Lives,” Katja Lindskog, Yale University
MLA 2020
“Mankind Was My Business!:” Dickens and Being Human
Location: Seattle, Washington State
Date: January 9, 2020
Chair: Amberyl Malkovich, Concord U
Presentations:
– “Body Language and Dickensian Humanism,” Peter J. Capuano, U of Nebraska, Lincoln
– “Teaching Humanity: An Investigation of Pedagogy and Human Interests in A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, and Great Expectations,” Anna Merz, Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State U
– “The Chance Child: Resistance, Belittling, and Gender Norming in Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Little Dorrit,” Amberyl Malkovich, Concord U
– “Charles Dickens’s Alternate Humanism: Ghostly, yet Clever Narration,” Sara Chung, Texas A&M U, College Station
MMLA 2019
“Double the Dickens: Counterparts in the Works”
Location: Chicago, IL
Date: November 15, 2019
Chair: Lydia Craig, Loyola U Chicago
Presentations:
– “The Dickens Brothers and Fraternal Doubling in Little Dorrit,” Lillian Nayder, Bates C
– “A Second Self: Re-written Identity in A Tale of Two Cities,” Marian Gentile, Temple U
– “On ‘Queer Street’: Financial Doubles and Queer Partnership in Dickens,” Margaret Dobbins, Eastern Michigan U
“Double the Dickens: Multiples in the Works”
Chair: Lydia Craig, Loyola U Chicago
Presentations:
– “Stephen Blackpool’s Two Wives: Law and Love in Hard Times,” Adrianne A. Wojcik, Northern Virginia Community C
– “Doubling Characters Across Novels: Esther Summerson and Arthur Clennam,” Christine Colón, Wheaton C
– “Her very clothes acted”: Doubling in Stage Adaptations of Bleak House,” Kirsten Andersen, U of Cincinnati
NeMLA 2019
“Charles Dickens and the Influences of the Past”
Location: Gaylord National, Washington, D.C.
Date: March 22, 2019
Chair: Kristin A. Le Veness, SUNY- Nassau Community C
Presentations:
– “Dickens and the Art of Classical Allusion,” Christian Lehmann, Bard High School Early College
– “The Clarissa Complex: Forced Marriage in Nicholas Nickleby and Dombey and Son,” Leah Grisham, George Washington U
– “‘Spots of Time’: Wordsworthian Spirits and Dickensian Hauntings,” Eric Lorentzen, U of Mary Washington
– “What Dickens Read: Finding an Unknown Source of Inspiration for Oliver Twist in Dickens’s Library,” Eva-Charlotta Mebius, University C-London
“Neo-Dickens for a New Audience: Reading, Watching, and Teaching Dickens in the 21st Century”
Chair: Mary Ann Tobin, Pennsylvania State U
Presentations:
– “@GE_Jaggers in 280 characters: Exploring Repressions in the Great Expectations Readalong,” Lydia Craig, Loyola U Chicago
– “Dickens and Doctor Who: Lessons in Time Travel,” April Kendra, U of Delaware
– “Dickens’s Chinese Afterlife: YU Hua’s Brothers and Our Mutual Friend,” Hai Na, unspecified
– “A Christmas Carol: the Gift Book we Keep on Giving,” Mary Ann Tobin, Pennsylvania State U
MLA 2019
“Feral Dickens”
Location: Chicago, IL
Date: January 4, 2019
Chair: Lillian Nayder, Bates C
Presentations:
– “Wild Things: Dickens’s Vibrant Murders,” Katherine J. Anderson, Western Washington U
– “Association, Sentiment, and Becoming Animal: Dickens’s Feral Children,” Joshua Gooch, D’Youville C
– ‘Wilderness of a Home’: Domesticity, Ferality, and the Railroad in Dombey and Son,” Jenny Haden, U of Washington, Seattle
– ‘Changed into Wild Beasts’: Characterizing the Crowd in A Tale of Two Cities, Catherine Quirk, McGill U
MMLA 2018
“Consuming Cultures: Dickens”
Location: Kansas City, MO
Date: November 16, 2018
Chair: Sean Grass, Iowa State U
Presentations:
– “Consuming Dickens: Teaching A Christmas Carol to Twenty-First Century Students,” Gretchen Frank, Lakeland Community College
– “The Idea of the Christmas Gift in Charles Dickens’s Christmas Stories of the 1840s,” Renata Goroshkova, Saint Petersburg State University
– “Collaboration, Race, and a Cannibalism Surprise,” Melisa Klimaszewski, Drake University
NeMLA 2018
“Charles Dickens: Lessons Imparted and Lessons Learned”
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Date: April 12-15, 2018
Chair: Kristin Le Veness, SUNY Nassau Community College
Presentations:
– “Hard Times: Factory Education, Factory System, and the Preston Strike” Dewey Hall, California State Polytechnic U-Pomona
– “Learning to Manage Madness: Dickens, Moral Management, and Disability” Emily Baldys, Zane State C
– “Always an Active Body: Lessons about Disability and Poverty in Our Mutual Friend,” Catherine Welter, U of New Hampshire
– “Gendered Lessons: Rejected Constructions of Womanhood and Femininity,” Kristin Le Veness, SUNY Nassau Community C
MLA 2018
“Dickens and Resistance”
Location: New York City, NY
Date: January 6, 2018
Chair: Diana C. Archibald, U of Massachusetts Lowell
Presentations:
– “A Blot in the Theater: Dickens, Macready, and the Quest to ‘Revive the Drama,” James Armstrong, Graduate Center, City U of New York
– “Dickens and Government Resistance: The Battle to Save Epping Forest,” Sophie Christmas-Lavin, Stony Brook U, State U of New York
– “Dickens and Gender Resistance,” Jolene Zigarovich, U of Northern Iowa
– “Innumerable Goroos Interspered’: Awkwardness as Resistance in Dickens’s Prose,” Jonathan Farina, Seton Hall U
“Ephemeral Dickens”
Date: January 4, 2018
Chair: Susan Zieger, U of California, Riverside
Presentations:
– “Disposable Dickens? Exploring Dickens in the Ephemeral Archive,” Janice M. Carlisle and Elizabeth Frengel, Yale U
– “Dickensian Jottings,” Lillian Nayder, Bates C
– Recurrent Ephemerality and the Dolly Varden Dress, Rebecca N. Mitchell, U of Birmingham
NeMLA 2017
“Dickens, Race, Empire”
Location: Baltimore, MD
Date: March 24, 2017
Chair: Iain Crawford, U of Delaware
Presentations:
– “‘The Abuse of Irresponsible Power’: Slavery, Violence, and Dependence in Oliver Twist”
Joshua Gooch, D’Youville College
– “Ritual Sacrifice and Race in the Narrative of A Tale of Two Cities” Trenton Judson,
Jarvis Christian College
– “Playing at Harem: Child Performance of Eastern Roles in Dickens’s ‘The Ghost in Master B’s
Room’” Adam McCune, Baylor University
– “Degeneration Fascination” James Buzard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MLA 2017
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Date: January 7, 2017
“Dickens and Family”
Co-Chairs: Natalie McKnight, Boston University; Lillian Nayder, Bates C
Presentations:
– “Broken Families as (Post)Colonial Doubles: Dickens’ Returned Convicts,” Christie Harner, Dartmouth C
– “Marriage Contracts, Slavery Cases, and the Legal History of Oliver Twist,” Lucy Sheehan, Columbia U
– “Embodied Maternity, Bildung, and the Dickensian Home,” Livia Arndal Woods, Queens C (CUNY)
– “David Copperfield, the Ideal Family and Blood Relations,” Rosetta Young, UC-Berkeley
MMLA 2016
“Dickensian Exchange”
Location: St. Louis, MO
Date: November 12, 2016
Chair: Sean Grass, Iowa State U
Presentations:
– “Magwitch’s Muzzle: Dividing Men from Beasts in Great Expectations,” Alistair Robinson, UC London
– “(Un)anxious Worlds: Taking Stock of Minor Characters in Dickens’s Fictions,” Kristen Starkowski, Princeton U
– “Bleak House: Legal Advocacy and Professional Responsibility,” Brenda Welch, independent scholar
NeMLA 2016
“Digital Dickens”
Location: Hartford, CT
Date: March 19, 2016
Chair: Diana Archibald, U of Massachusetts Lowell
Presentations:
– “Digital Dickens: Virtual Travel and Tourism,” Diana Archibald, U of Massachusetts Lowell
– “Tweeting Tippins: Using Digital Media to Recreate Our Mutual Friend’s Serialization,” Lydia Craig, Loyola U C
– “Digital Dickenses: Family Drama in the Digital Archive,” Lillian Nayder, Bates C
MLA 2016
“Dickens and Disability”
(Two panels in partnership with The Dickens Project of UC Santa Cruz):
Location: Austin, TX
Date: January 9, 2016
Chair: Talia C. Schaffer, Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York
Presentations:
– “The Working Artist and the Literary Man: Disabled Self-Fashioning in Our Mutual Friend,” Natalie Prizel, Yale U
– “Grotesque Intelligence: Precocity as Disability in Dickens,” Mallory Cohn, Indiana U, Bloomington
– “The Magnification of Jenny Wren,” Rachel Herzl-Betz, U of Wisconsin, Madison
“‘The Dickens Jukebox’: Music at Work and Play in Narrative Form”
Date: January 7, 2016
Chair: Carolyn S. Williams, Rutgers U, New Brunswick
Presentations:
– “Dickens’s Music: Harmony, Texture, and Form in Nicholas Nickleby,” Jonathan Farina, Seton Hall U
– “Musical Surface and Depth in Little Dorrit,” Carolyn S. Williams, Rutgers U, New Brunswick
– “Doing and Undoing the Orphan: John Parry’s ‘Peasant Boy,’ Bleak House, and Our Mutual Friend,” Tricia A. Lootens, U of GeorgiaJames
2023, Rochester, New York
Dates: July 16-19, 2022
Sponsored by: Rochester Institute of Technology
Organizer: Sean Grass (Rochester Institute of Technology)
2022, London, United Kingdom
Dates: July 8-10, 2022
Sponsored by: City, University of London
Organizers: Juliet John (Royal Holloway, University of London), David McAllister (Birkbeck, University of London), Chris Louttit (Radboud University), Michaela Mahlberg (University of Birmingham), Claire Wood (University of Leicester)
2021, Virtual
Dates: July 12-14th, 2021
Sponsored by: Rochester Institute of Technology
Organizers: Sean Grass (Rochester Institute of Technology), Chris Louttit (Radboud University), Emily Bell (Leeds University), Lydia Craig (Loyola University Chicago)
2019, Salt Lake City, Utah
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Dates: July 26-28th, 2019
Sponsored by: Utah Valley University
Organizers: Leslie Simon (Utah Valley U)
2018, Tübingen, Germany
The 23rd Annual Dickens Symposium: “Dickens and Language”
Location: Tübingen, Germany
Dates: 30 July-August 1, 2018
Sponsored by: Eberhard Karls University
Organizers: Mattias Bauer and Angelika Zirker (Eberhard Karls U)
2017, Boston, US
The 22nd Annual Dickens Symposium: “Interdisciplinary Dickens”
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Dates: July 14-16, 2017
Sponsored by: the Dickens Society and The Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning at the College of General Studies, Boston University.
Organizer: (Natalie J. McKnight, Boston U)
2016, Reykjavík, Iceland
The 21st Annual Dickens Symposium: “Adapting Dickens”
Location: Harpa, Reykjavík
Dates: 11-13 July, 2016
2015, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
The 20th Annual Dickens Symposium: “Liquid Dickens”
Location: Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Dates: July 8-10, 2015
Organizer: Sara Malton (Saint Mary’s University)
2014 Béziers, France
The 19th Annual Dickens Society Symposium, “Dickensian Landscapes”
Location: Domaine de Sagnes, Béziers (Languedoc-Roussillon), France.
Dates: 8-10 July, 2014
Organizers: Marie-Amélie Coste (Lycée Jules Ferry), Christine Huguet (Université Lille III), Nathalie Vanfasse (Aix-Marseille Université), and Paul Vita (Saint Louis U, Madrid).
2013 Toronto, Canada
Location: Toronto, Canada
Dates: July 4-8, 2013
Organizer: Dr. Leon Litvack (Queen’s U, Belfast, Northern Ireland).
2012 Lowell, Massachusetts, US & Canterbury, Kent, UK
In the bicentennial year, the Dickens Society was particularly fortunate in having the opportunity to host two symposia—one on each side of the Atlantic.
I.
Location: Massachusetts, Lowell National Historical Park
Dates: July 13-15, 2012
Sponsored by: the University of Massachusetts Lowell
Organizers: Diana C Archibald (U Mass Lowell) and Joel J. Brattin (Worcester Polytechnic Institute).
II.
Location: Kent, England
Dates: 13-15 September, 2012
Sponsored by: the University of Kent in Canterbury
Organizers: Malcolm Andrews (University of Kent), Catherine Waters (University of Kent), and David Paroissien (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Dickens Society Conference on July 26, 2019 in Salt Lake City. (Kim Raff / UVU Marketing)
The Dickens Society Mission Statement:
The purpose of the Dickens Society is to conduct, further, and support research, publication, instruction, and general interest in the life, times, and literature of Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870).
Victorian author, editor, journalist social campaigner, traveler, actor, and entrepreneur, Charles Dickens remains a world-famous name in the 21st century. His fifteen novels and other literary works have been translated into hundreds of global languages and adapted countless times for stage, television, and screen. At first referred to by his early pen name “Boz,” (used for Sketches by Boz (1836) published in various newspapers), and later known as “The Inimitable,” young Dickens was launched into international celebrity by the runaway success of his first novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (serialized 1836-37) and exerted a major cultural impact in Great Britain and wherever his works were read or translated for the remainder of his highly active career.
Members may present papers at our annual symposium, and they receive special announcements and updates through our Dickens Society members listserv. Additionally, other featured events for members include Dickens Society sponsored panels at MLA and regional MLA conventions. Membership comes with a subscription to the Society’s journal, Dickens Quarterly.
To join the Dickens Society, sign up for a Dickens Quarterly subscription!
If you have any questions about the Dickens Society membership process, please contact the Society Secretary, Claire Wood, at dickenssocietysecretary@gmail.com.
Current Officers, Communication Chairs, and Trustees:
Michaela Mahlberg, Vice President (term ends 1 September 2025 and President-Elect)
Claire Wood, Secretary (term ends 1 September 2024)
Lydia Craig, Treasurer (term ends 1 September 2025)
Term ending 1 September 2024: Michelle Allen-Emerson (U.S. Naval Academy), Katie Bell (Dunwoody High School, Georgia), Ushashi Dasgupta (University of Oxford), and Joanna Hofer-Robinson (University College Cork).
Term ending 1 September 2025: Carolyn Vellenga Berman (Eugene Lang College, The New School), Nanako Konoshima (Kyoto Notre Dame University), Ben Moore (University of Amsterdam), and Catherine Quirk (Edge Hill University).
Term ending 1 September 2026: Ahmed Diaa Dardir (IDCtheory), Anya Estman (Royal Holloway), Annette Federico (James Madison University), Katherine J. Kim (Molloy University).
Editorial Staff:
Dominic Rainsford, General Editor
Trey Philpotts, Associate Editor
Margaret Darby, Review Editor
Amanda Helm, Production Editor
