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


Victorians Institute & Journal: http://www.vcu.edu/vij/