The Dickens Society blog is 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.

To tie in with the 22nd annual Dickens Society Symposium, running 14-16 July in Boston, MA, the Dickens Society blog also welcomes submissions of 800-1200 words related to the topic of Interdisciplinary Dickens (the full schedule and registration information for the event can be found here). We encourage speakers to submit snippets of their research and tasters of their talks ahead of the symposium.

Charles Dickens was the ultimate interdisciplinary thinker. The encyclopedic quality of his writing, his incorporation of characters from all classes and walks of life, his genius at being “a special correspondent for posterity,” and his interest in reforms in prisons, the treatment of the insane and urban design all result in works that reflect on a wide range of disciplines and that can be effectively illuminated by interdisciplinary approaches. Yet these approaches are complicated by the fact that Dickens’s career coincided with the emergence of modern disciplines of knowledge, and the nature and definitions of these disciplines has shifted.

We invite blog posts that explore some aspect of Dickens’s oeuvre in light of another discipline, such as:

• Dickens and art
• Dickens and biology
• Dickens and law
• Dickens and medicine
• Dickens and philosophy
• Dickens and political science
• Dickens and religion, etc.

How does Dickens shed light on these disciplines, and/or how do their epistemological perspectives illuminate his works?

Posts will be accepted up to 15 August 2017, to be posted between now and the end of August. A new topic will be proposed for the months of September to December.

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