We invite papers on the cerebral Dickens, but also on “the mind of the heart” (David Copperfield): on how Charles Dickens thought, but also how and what we think about him. Suitable topics might include:

• Dickens and philosophy, psychology, statistics, or the natural sciences

• Dickens and his intellectual friends and contemporaries, such as Thomas Carlyle and George Eliot

• How Dickens and his readers develop ideas through and by means of language

• Plotting, planning, and making connections

• Dickens cognitively and imaginatively at work, at the level of paragraphs, sentences, and individual words

• Thinking … but also dreaming, believing, and (in Rosemarie Bodenheimer’s double-edged phrase) knowing Dickens

• How Dickens’s characters’ minds work

• Natural and artificial intelligence in the study and teaching of Dickens

• Neurodiversity

• Revisiting Dickens and literary/critical theory, from deconstruction to cognitive poetics

• Logical Dickens; learned Dickens; witty Dickens; stupid Dickens

• Gendered, racialized, and class-defined models of thought

• Thought in relation to things in Dickens, including how he imagines the inanimate, and how abstract form, sound, space, or the temporal and material constraints of book-making structure and define his narratives

• Thoughtfulness or mindfulness in Dickens

• What we think of Dickens as a person, and what he might have thought of us

As always, papers on Dickensian topics other than the stated theme will also be welcome. 

Abstracts of proposed papers (250 words max.), together with a biographical statement (150 words max.), should be sent by 4 January 2026 to Dominic Rainsford at dickens2026@cc.au.dk.

Please note that all presenters must be members of the Dickens Society by the time of the Symposium. Membership costs $35.00/year and includes a subscription to Dickens Quarterly.

Applicants seeking financial support may be eligible to apply for Bursary Scholarships (Graduate, Untenured, Independent Scholar), Robert B. Partlow Prize (Conference Paper), David Paroissien Prize (Published Article), and Mary Espartero Webb Travel Award (BIPOC): https://dickenssociety.org/home.