CFP DEADLINE EXTENDED: VICTORIANS INSTITUTE CONFERENCE

Charles Dickens: Past, Present, and Future

October 21-22, 2011, Myrtle Beach, SC (Ocean Creek Resort)

To help usher in the global celebration of his bicentenary in 2012, the 41st annual conference of the Victorians Institute will focus rather broadly on the life and work of Charles Dickens. We welcome papers that examine Dickens's writings and their relevance to us today. We are particularly interested in interdisciplinary essays exploring the literary life and legacy of Dickens in relation to science, economics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, law, history, aesthetics, and theater and film adaptation. This year's keynote speaker is Audrey Jaffe, Professor of English at the University of Toronto. She is the author of The Affective Life of the Average Man: The Victorian Novel and the Stock-Market Graph (The Ohio State University Press, 2010); Scenes of Sympathy: Identity and Representation in Victorian Fiction (Cornell University Press, 2000); and Vanishing Points: Dickens, Narrative, and the Subject of Omniscience (University of California Press, 1991).

Topics may include, but are not limited to:
Dickens's Journalism
Dickens and the Literary Marketplace
Dickens and Mass Culture
Dickensian Friendships
Dickensian Scandals
The Dickens Circle
Catherine Dickens
Dickens and Science
Dickens and Emotion
Reading Dickens
Dickensian Afterlives
Spiritualism and Spirituality in Dickens
Dickens's Moral Philosophy
Dickens and the Posthuman
Dickens and Travel
Theatrical Dickens
Dickens in America
Dickens and Empire
The Dickens Industry

Please send proposals of no more than 500 words and a brief one-paragraph bio by June 20, 2011 to: Dr. Maria K. Bachman, Department of English, P.O. Box 261954, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina 29528-6054. Email: mbachman@coastal.edu