Dickens-to-Go: Episodes 11-20
In this video series, members of the Dickens Universe community share a favorite passage from Dickens and say a few words about why they selected it. We hope this video series can remind us of what we have in common, and what we can look forward to when our annual conferences resume.
Dickens à la Carte
Professor Ian Duncan (UC Berkeley) shares a charming passage from Bleak House in which Mr. Guppy, early in his career as an attorney's clerk, acts as a generous host. At the same time, Dickens explores theories of early evolutionist science.
Dickens, Mesmerism, and Ghosts
Just in time for Halloween, Dr. Romany Reagan explains how the Victorian revival of Mesmerism of the 1830s allowed Dickens to explore "ideas about the workings of the mind [that] come through in his work when you start to see his characters and their hauntings through the lens of his mesmeric philosophy."
The Joy in Dickens
Phyllis Orrick, a former journalist and retired research editor at UC Berkeley, was inspired to embark upon reading Dickens's fourteen novels in chronological order "by two circumstances that occurred nearly 30 years apart." She uses the example of The Pickwick Papers to explore themes of poetry, narrative technique, and the aspirational semi-biographical Dickens.
Little Dorrit and Arthur Clennam: A Modest Life of Usefulness and Happiness
In this week's installment, Peter Ponzio, a tutor at Harrison Middleton University and instructor at Loyola University of Chicago, examines "the fallen state of mankind" Dickens creates within and outside of the Marshalsea Prison in Little Dorrit. While happiness is possible, no one is free from prison's lasting effects.
Edwin Drood: A Mystery to the Very End
Friends of the Dickens Project Board Member and published author, Carl Wilson, describes Dickens's final novel's instant success, along with the effect of its sudden conclusion.
David Copperfield: The Hero of David Copperfield
Gerhard Joseph, Professor Emeritus of the City University of New York, asserts that by viewing David Copperfield within the context of the novel, Charles Dickens's life, and within the reader's own life, David Copperfield must, indeed, the hero of his own life.
Delicious Passages from Great Expectations
Citing delicious passages from chapters 1 and 2 of Great Expectations, Dickens Project Director, John O. Jordan, underscores how the oral and aural pleasures of reading Dickens aloud can provide more clues to the story.
How to Handle an Old Book
Have you ever wanted to learn more about rare and antiquarian books? Tim Clark, Chairman of the Greater Riverside Area Dickens Fellowship and Friends of the Dickens Project Board Member, provides an introduction to the care required to handle old and rare books.
Concerning Bella's Husband
UC Santa Cruz undergraduate student, Helen Everbach, demonstrates how Dickens captures a loving and intimate moment between newlyweds, Bella Wilfer and John Rokesmith, in Our Mutual Friend.
Government: How Not to Do It
Bill Jordan, a public servant for around forty years, uses the Circumlocution Office's example to show how artfully Dickens portrays "the foibles of government bureaucracy."
See Also
