Attending the Dickens Universe in Summer of '24 offered me one of the most fun and enriching teaching experiences of my graduate career to date. Working on Great Expectations with a class of students that included high school seniors alongside retirees seemed, at first, rather daunting. By our second daily meeting, though, we were an enthusiastic and engaged unit. Retired lawyers and high school teachers and doctors brought insights from their lives and careers, while our high school students, fresh from their classrooms and excitedly on their way to college, offered brilliant close-readings. What an extraordinary gift it was, to be in a room, reading (!) with these marvelous minds and kind human beings.
Another benefit of attending the Universe was the opportunity to apply for a graduate travel grant to attend the Dickens Project’s Graduate Winter Conference at UCLA February 15-17. This trip allowed me to reconnect with graduate students I had met at the Universe in Santa Cruz. Our previous acquaintance facilitated continued community and bridged any awkwardness graduate students often encounter in a conference environment. Living on the gorgeous UCLA campus for a few days (right near the sculpture garden!) while winter stretched on in other parts of the country was just glorious. In this setting, we caught up on each other's lives and research over the intervening months; shared meals and presentation practice-sessions; and, in some cases, made plans for the next Dickens Universe.
The winter conference gave us all space to learn from other students at different career stages—those in the job market, those completing graduate coursework, and those in the midst of writing dissertations—and to present our own research in a supportive environment in which we already felt seen, known, and at home.
While I do work on nineteenth-century literature, I am no Victorianist, nor am I a novel scholar. Despite this, I had chosen, probably madly, to present a paper on George Eliot's Mill on the Floss. The feedback on my paper, from both fellow grad students and established professors, was and continues to be incredibly valuable. I hope to transform this paper from a presentation to a possible journal submission. The comments, suggestions, and questions I received from Jason Rudy of the University of Maryland before the conference, and then those I frantically scrawled during the Q&A, will help to smooth that transition and inform my further research as my essay develops. This is the kind of support and mentorship I would be highly unlikely to find anywhere else.
Beyond these already remarkable adventures, an extraordinary talk by USC’s Hilary Schor was a revelation. Her enthusiasm as she presents carries her audience along in the most delightfully contagious manner, and the way she gets deeply into a text, befriending its characters and then introducing them to everyone in the room in a manner that encourages her listeners to develop their own wonderfully world-bridging relationships, is just awe-inspiring. And finally, Mary Shannon and Jonathan Grossman, both of UCLA, were model hosts. Mary was so generous with help and advice throughout the process (and her paper on poet John Clare?—inspiring!) while Jonathan and his lovely family hosted the most magnificent dinner at their home. Thanks to the Dickens Project for the marvelous gift of this trip.
