This month the Dickens Society will be launching the Dickens Society Blog, aimed at disseminating Dickensian research both amongst the Society’s membership and to the larger academic community. We welcome ongoing submissions from researchers at any career level on any topic relating to Dickens’s life, work, or world – if you would like to submit a post on a forthcoming publication, an existing project or a think-piece on any topic, please get in touch.

For its inaugural postings, the Dickens Society Blog also welcomes targeted submissions of 800-1200 words on topics relating to Dickensian Christmas. Posts will be accepted up to 15 December 2016, to be posted between now and the end of the year. A new topic will be proposed for the months of January to April 2017.

In addition, we are interested in submissions answering or addressing any aspect of the following questions: 

– Modern Christmas has become a celebration both of childhood and of consumerism. In what ways do Dickens’s Christmas stories address these two discordant themes?

– Each of Dickens’s Christmas novels includes some kind of ghostly apparition. What connections might there be between Christmas and the supernatural?

Please email blog posts, proposals or any queries to emily.bell@york.ac.uk and catherine.quirk2@mail.mcgill.ca (blog editors). The editor-in-chief is the current Dickens Society Vice-President, Sean Grass.