The University of Buckingham is delighted to announce an International Dickens Conference to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Dickens’ death in 2020. The conference aims to use this moment to take stock of Dickens’ impact upon the world.
In recent times ‘impact’ has become a buzzword, equally welcome and unwelcome, in academic circles thanks to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and its introduction of impact as a metric for the value of research. It is no longer sufficient simply to write good work, but it must be shown to have had a wider influence on others too. 150 years after Dickens’s death we will subject him and his work to the same rigours, and ask ‘what has Dickens ever done for us?’
Appreciation of Dickens as a writer has long been enmeshed with our regard for him as a man of reform, whether that be encouraging political change in his savage criticism of institutions, or social change through campaigning for a remarkable range of causes. Equally, since his death, Dickens has become a figurehead for change, with societies and events continuing in his name. This conference invites delegates from all continents to consider the breadth and depth of Dickens’ impact upon his own time and ours to better understand the nature of his legacy, and the idea of artistic impact.
Proposals for papers of 20 minutes are welcomed on this subject. Topics could include, but are not limited to:
Social Policy and Campaigning – what tangible impact did Dickens have upon the social conditions of his time? How have his works been used/misused since to champion social change?
Politics and Journalism – did Dickens’ criticism of the ‘Circumlocution Office’ amount to anything beyond satire? Does a comic and satirical writer need to have a viable political programme of their own? What is the relationship between Dickens and the politics of his time, and how does Dickens’s own relationship with journalism and our journalistic culture feed into this?
Popular Fiction and Culture – How did Dickens’ works infiltrate the wider culture of his own time? Moreover, how does Dickens’ fare in the public consciousness today? Are his distinctive methods of characterisation and storytelling still in use, whether in print or audio/tele-visual media? Are the Neo-Victorian and Steampunk movements Dickensian or anti-Dickensian in tenor?
London – Much has been said of Dickens’ relation to the capital, but how is this reflected in the city today, e.g. through events, historical sites, walking tours, listed buildings, demolition and development? Has Dickens changed our idea of the metropolis in any significant ways? Have his works impacted on our ideas of the Cosmopolitan and Imperial?
Heritage and the Environment – how do we remember Charles Dickens through the spaces and locations he and his characters frequented? How do we link Dickens to the national consciousness and our sense of place, and to what end?
Modernism – were the Modernists a reaction against the style of Dickens, or was Dickens a forebear of modernism, and to what purpose is either view presented? How have his works altered the development of prose fiction and non-fiction in the centuries succeeding his death?
Victorian Studies – Dickens is the most famous author from the Victorian period, but does this work to the advantage or disadvantage of other nineteenth-century writers? Does Dickens stand as a guardian of nineteenth-century literature, or an apex predator starving other authors of their due recognition?
Dickens in Translation – we are now beginning to recognise, at last, that the quintessentially English author has another life in the wider world. How was Dickens received in other countries and what recognition do his works have abroad today?
Literary & Critical Theory – how has Dickens been used to promote and encourage the development of Theory? Conversely, to what extent has Dickens Studies resisted advanced theoretical approaches in favour of more traditional tactics of literary explanation and appreciation?
Dickens Online – the internet is the medium of our time par excellence, so how does Dickens translate to this field and what have been the mutual impact of Dickens and the internet upon one another? Can we predict whether his works will endure in the digital medium as long as they have in print formats? Or will he be seen as antediluvian in the post-digital age as that Megalosaurus famously envisaged ‘waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill’?
Submissions from graduate students and as yet unpublished scholars will be particularly welcome. Proposals of up to 500 words for 20-minute papers to reach DickensImpact@buckingham.ac.uk by 30 June 2020.
Update: Accessibility and Covid-19. In the current climate we appreciate it is difficult to plan ahead. We continue to monitor the situation and consider appropriate contingencies as necessary, including a blend of live attendance and online events to ensure that all are able to take part. But we hope that, in the 150th year since Dickens death, it will be possible for academics and enthusiasts to come together to celebrate Dickens and his legacy.
The Impact of Dickens 