The CLiC blog showcases research and impact activities from the AHRC-funded CLiC Dickens project. We write posts summarising our research output, reporting on impact events and explaining new features of the CLiC web app.
Tiffany Olgun is a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London, researching the Dickensian dandy. In this post, she explores the language surrounding nineteenth-century English dandyism and the progression of the dandy from his Regency incarnation to his decadent form. The nineteenth-century English dandy is often portrayed as a man of pure surface and … Continue reading “Decadence and Debauchery: Undressing the Dandy Using the CLiC Web App”
Anya Eastman is a second-year Technê PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London. Anya’s work explores the memorialisation of Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Oscar Wilde, with an emphasis on heritage and material culture. In addition to her doctoral research Anya is the co-director of Royal Holloway’s Centre for Victorian Studies and she has been on placement at the Charles Dickens Museum, working as a research assistant on the upcoming exhibition ‘To be Read at Dusk: Dickens, Ghosts and the Supernatural’. In this post, Anya explores Dickens’s ghosts using the CLiC corpora and discusses her findings alongside plans for the museum’s exhibition.
Maya Sfeir is a Lecturer based in Beirut, Lebanon. Her research interests focus on examining and understanding the literary-linguistic interface. In this blog post, she explores how sweat is represented in Victorian fiction by examining two CLiC sub-corpora, 19C and DNov. Her previous contribution to CLiC,‘On Kitchens, Keywords, Key Clusters, and Concordances…’, re-examined eating and … Continue reading “‘By the Sweat of their Brows’ or How Characters (Don’t) Sweat in Nineteenth-Century Fiction”
Following her previous post on using CLiC and BMI (Birmingham & Midland Institute) resources with A Level students, Alex Round steps into her role as a researcher of 19th century literature to discuss the themes of passion, convention and education in Dickens’s Hard Times, and reflect on the educational role of the BMI. This post … Continue reading “Using CLiC and the BMI resources: Restrictions of passion and effects of convention in Hard Times”
This is the second post of the mini-series “Bringing Dickens to the Stage”, in which actor Gerald Dickens (@DickensShows on Twitter) recounts his personal connection with the works of his great great grandfather, Charles Dickens. The post is brought to you as part of the BMI Lockdown Life initiative, in collaboration with the Birmingham & Midland Institute. Join the conversation … Continue reading “Bringing Dickens to the Stage. Part Two: Dickens’ performing career”
In the anniversary week of Charles Dickens’s death, 150 years ago, we are delighted to present you a personal view of Charles Dickens by his great great grandson Gerald Dickens (@DickensShows on Twitter). This post is brought to you as part of the BMI Lockdown Life initiative, in collaboration with the Birmingham & Midland Institute. … Continue reading “Bringing Dickens to the Stage. Part One: A Christmas Carol”
In this post, Mary Hind-Portley (@Lit_Liverbird) explains how she teaches Dickens’s Christmas Carol with a focus on its religious elements. The post is based on Mary’s remote CPD presentation and a previous blogpost for @LitdriveUK (https://litdrive.org.uk/). The full set of Mary’s slides shown throughout the post is available here [PDF, 6.1MB]. You can follow Mary … Continue reading “A Christmas Carol: A secular or religious text?”
In this post, Dr Caroline Radcliffe (University of Birmingham), discusses the dramatic quality of Dickens’s writing. She reflects on Dickens’s own dramatised reading, Sikes and Nancy, adapted from Oliver Twist, of which she directed a performance at the BMI in 2017 as part of the CLiC Dickens Day. This is a post of the BMI … Continue reading “Sikes and Nancy: Dickens and audience”
In this post for the “BMI lockdown life” series, Lydia Craig (@lydiaecraig on Twitter) of the Loyola University Chicago delights us with more insights about Charles Dickens, the 16th president of the BMI. Lydia is co-organizer of the upcoming #Dickens150 virtual conference on 9 June. If you want to join this day of virtual talks … Continue reading ““Mew says the cat…Bow-wow-wow says the dog”: Which animal did Dickens prefer?”
In this post, Dr Serena Trowbridge (Birmingham City University), Senior Vice-President of the Birmingham & Midland Institute, discusses Dickens’ role in supporting the B&MI as an educational institution in its early days. By drawing on Dickens’ views on education in his novel Hard Times, this post is a perfect sequel to Dr Pete Orford’s post … Continue reading “Hard Times at the BMI”
