CFP: The Other Dickens: Neo-Victorian Appropriation and Adaptation
As part of the bicentenary celebrations of Dickens's birth, the editors of a special issue of Neo-Victorian Studies on 'The Other Dickens: Neo-Victorian Appropriation and Adaptation' invite contributors to consider the 'other' Dickens - those aspects of Dickens's life and work that have been the subject of recent revision, reappraisal, and transformation in contemporary culture. The special issue will aim to critically assess our persisting fascination with this canonical Victorian figure and, more generally, the 'Dickensian' cultural legacy of the Victorian age in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We would especially welcome papers and creative pieces which address the continued influence of Dickens on neo-Victorian studies, in literature, in bio-fiction, as well as in film and television adaptations of his novels.
Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Dickens and adaptation/re-writings
- Dickens and the legacies of Empire
- International/trans-cultural Dickens in the age of globalisation
- Dickens and contemporary politics (social reforms, the 'Big Society', philanthropy)
- Dickens and twenty-first-century material/commodity culture and consumerism
- Dickens and revisions of gender in the private and public spheres
- Dickens and neo-Victorian nostalgia
- Gothicised Dickens/Dickens's ghosts
- Dickens and Dickens's women in bio-fiction
- Dickens and (self-)performance/performing the past
Please send a 500 word proposal for a 6,000-8,000 word chapter to the guest editors Elodie Rousselot (Elodie.Rousselot@port.ac.uk) and Charlotte Boyce (charlotte.boyce@port.ac.uk) by 29 February 2012, adding a short biographical note. Completed articles and/or creative pieces will be due by 15 July 2012 and should be sent as a Word.doc attachment via email to the guest editors, with a copy to neovictorianstudies@swansea.ac.uk. Please consult the NVS website (http://www.neovictorianstudies.com/) for further submission guidelines.