Call for Papers: Dickens Day 2022
‘Beginning Dickens’
Saturday 8th October 2022, Senate House London, UK
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
After a hiatus of two years, we are very happy to announce that Dickens Day is returning in 2022. Accordingly, the topic for this year’s conference is ‘Beginning Dickens’, as we take this moment to resume our discussion of Dickens and his works and begin again. Publishing his novels in serial instalments meant that Dickens had to think carefully about the openings of his works to ensure readers were suitably intrigued and invested to buy the next instalment. As Dickens developed as a writer, so he began to plan his novels in advance; his early works therefore can offer a stark contrast between how a story starts and how it ends, while his later works can be analysed for any early warnings or foreshadowing of later plot developments.
Equally, there is also opportunity here to consider how we, as readers, begin Dickens. Such is the author’s fame that his reputation always precedes him, so what does it mean for a modern reader to experience Dickens for the first time today? Do we encounter him through adaptations first, before turning to the original? How does Dickens match our expectations? And how do we encourage new readers to begin Dickens?
Finally, there is the consideration of Dickens’s own life. How did he begin his life and career; and how did he embrace or encourage new beginnings and reinventions through his life?
These are just some of the questions we hope to consider on the day. We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on any aspect of the theme and warmly encourage Dickensians and scholars of all backgrounds and career stages to apply. Topics could include but are not limited to:
- New beginnings in Dickens’s life and works
- First experiences of reading Dickens
- Dickens for children
- Dickens’s early novels and writing
- First meetings between characters
- Fresh starts, new beginnings and turning points
- False starts and cul-de-sacs
- First instalments and opening chapters of Dickens’s novels
- First editions of Dickens’s works
- Early reactions to Dickens from his contemporaries
- First impressions of Dickens
- Dickens’ child characters
- Dickens’s attempts to reinvent himself
- Regeneration and transformation in Dickens’s novels
- Reputation and foreknowledge: Dickens’s works as culture-texts.
Please send proposals (maximum 500 words) and a short bio to Pete Orford, Emma Curry, Hadas Elber-Aviram and Claire Wood at dickensdayuk@gmail.com
The deadline for paper proposals is 31st May 2022.