News

  • Race, Violence, and Form in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

    March 27, 2025

  • Dickens Day Dances into the Kern River Valley

    March 24, 2025

    The 12th Grade Honors English class at Kern Valley High School in Lake Isabella, CA, participated in its first "Dickens Day of Writing" on February 7, the author's birthday. Teacher Ray Crosby, a longtime Dickens Universe participant, worked with the Dickens Project and UCSC to host the event at this small mountain school in the Sequoia National Forest, about an hour east of Bakersfield.

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    Father-Daughter Team Finds the Universe Delightful

    March 24, 2025

    "I had to bargain hard for my dad to come with me, but I eventually convinced him! I still remember when we got our room assignments, and my dad plopped himself down, and I said, 'How does it feel to be back at college?' and we both laughed. It really is an amazing experience, both academically and personally."

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    McGee is a “Little Dickens”

    March 24, 2025

    "'The Old Curiosity Shop' is a perfect read for those with pets, especially dogs. Phiz’s illustration of Jerry and his dancing dogs and Charles Green’s depiction of the dog troupe performing for Nell fit right into McGee’s lineage."

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    A “Sweet Störy”

    March 24, 2025

    Friends of the Dickens Project President Michael Stern wears another hat when he’s not performing his duties for the Friends—he’s a movie producer!

  • 2025 Winter Conference Grad Students

    Grads Re-Connect at Winter Conference

    March 24, 2025

    "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."

  • Santa Cruz DDOW students after raffle

    Annual Dickens Day of Writing Celebrates Four Years

    March 24, 2025

    The fourth annual Dickens Day of Writing took place on Friday, February 7, Dickens’s 213th birthday. High school juniors and seniors from Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey, and Santa Clara Counties took part, as did students in San Mateo and even further afield—Atlanta, Cleveland, and this year, Lake Isabella, CA.

  • Farce actors bowing

    The Quintessence of Theater—Dickens Universe Style

    March 24, 2025

    John Bowen, Abraham says, is the one who suggested that he revive the farce. “He was my supervisor at the University of York, where I did the MA degree in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture,” Abraham says. “And I suppose he had a vague idea that I had a theatre or creative-writing background. It also helped that my master’s research was on Victorian imitations of 'The Pickwick Papers.'”

  • The 2024 Dickens Universe

    November 15, 2024

  • Plans for the Dickens Day of Writing

    November 15, 2024

  • A popular Humanities course is unwrapping the strange and fraught history and cultural afterlife of Egyptian mummies

    November 15, 2024

  • A Christmas Carol at Santa Cruz Shakespeare

    November 15, 2024

    The Dickens Project is excited to announce a collaboration with Santa Cruz Shakespeare this winter to provide a freshly intricate telling of "A Christmas Carol" at the Santa Cruz County Veteran’s Memorial Building

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    Dickens Project gets prestigious $200,000 NEH grant to host institute for high school teachers

    October 16, 2024

    A $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities is funding a new Dickens Project initiative, an in-person institute for 25 high school teachers from across the United States. The institute will help teachers consider bold new approaches to teaching Charles Dickens' classic 1861 novel Great Expectations.

  • Dickens fun at Dance

    Dickens Universe 2024: A Spirited Celebration of Great Expectations

    August 9, 2024

    This summer, Charles Dickens readers converged on campus for the 43rd annual Dickens Universe, where a shared familiarity with Great Expectations added a sense of kinship and intimacy.

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    A “Reunion” of Dickens and Shakespeare

    July 17, 2024

    A renewed collaboration between The Dickens Project and Shakespeare Santa Cruz, including a summer offer!

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    An Oral History of the Universe

    July 17, 2024

    An ongoing project about the creation and continuation of our cornerstone conference. A story of community.

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    Coming Back for More

    July 17, 2024

    Glenna Matthews recounts her fateful discovery of the Universe and why she now returns every year.

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    Hannah Baumgarten’s Havisham! Explores a Bitter Life

    July 17, 2024

    Learn more about the Universe's featured dance screening from an interview with Artistic Director Hannah Baumgarten, who has a generational connection to the piece. 

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    NEW! Dickensian Pet Profiles and Pet Calendar

    July 17, 2024

    Join in on some furry, Dickensian fun inspired by the Charles Dickens Museum in London! In the best and worst of times, our pets are with us through it all.

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    Meet One of Our First-Time Speakers: Elaine Auyoung

    July 17, 2024

    In this profile piece, Dr. Auyoung, associate professor of English at the University of Minnesota, discusses her recent work and relationship to Dickens. She will be giving a lecture at this year's Universe titled "Learning to Feel Ashamed of Home".

  • Photo of pianist Lura Johnson

    Updated! Lura Johnson and Jason Rudy to Perform This Summer

    July 17, 2024

    This summer's Dickens Universe will feature a performance by pianist Lura Johnson, the Resident Pianist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Principal Pianist of the Delaware Symphony. Johnson will be joined by Jason Rudy, Professor of English at the University of Maryland, blending music, poetry, and discussion for a night to remember.

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    “I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.”

    July 11, 2024

    After missing last summer's Dickens Universe, the Project's Assistant Director, Courtney Mahaney, is overjoyed to return this year–now with a new gait!