Category: Dickens-to-Go

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. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Hello. My name is Carl Wilson. I have been reading Dickens for more than fifty years. I have read all of his novels several times, but the…

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. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Hello, I’m Gerhard Joseph, I’m a retiree from the City University…

Citing his favorite delicious passages from chapters 1 and 2 from 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.  VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Hi, I’m John Jordan from UC Santa Cruz and the Dickens Project with more favorite passages of mine…

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. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Coming soon! Tim holds various positions in his community. In…

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. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Hi, my name is Helen Everbach, I work with the Dickens Project. I am in Santa Cruz, California right now, and I would like to talk about…

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.” VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Hi, my name is Bill Jordan.  In this episode of “Dickens To Go,” I am speaking to you from my home in the Nation’s Capital, Washington, DC.  I…

Murray Baumgarten, Founding Director of the Dickens Project, describes how Charles Dickens’s innovative use of dynamic visuals changed the narrative form and served as a precursor to early films. Transcript coming soon. Dickens-to-Go is a weekly program of short videos designed to whet the viewers’ appetite for “more” of their favorite author. You can join…

Wayne Batten, Friends of the Dickens Project Board Member, points us to a passage from David Copperfield to demonstrate how the Inimitable conveys the inexpressible.

Priti Joshi, Professor of English at the University of Puget Sound, directs viewers to an exchange with a minor character in The Pickwick Papers to illustrate the early “Dickensian brilliance in capturing hot air, the sheer absurdity and hollow profundity.” TRANSCRIPT Hello. My name is Priti Joshi, and I teach at the University of Puget Sound in…

Sharon Aronofsky Weltman, the William E. “Bud” Davis Alumni Professor of English at Louisiana State University, uses the occasion of a performance to describe the complex power dynamics where “hierarchies of race, gender, pedagogy, performance, and sexual attraction” are at play in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. TRANSCRIPT Hi. I’m Sharon Aronofsky Weltman, speaking to you…

Sophia Jochem, a Ph.D. candidate at Freie Universität Berlin, points us to an interaction between the beadle and the pew-opener in Dombey and Son, to explore issues of money, status, gender, and marriage in Victorian England. She attended the Dickens Universe in 2017. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Hello, I’m Sophia Jochem. I’m really pleased to take part in…

Longtime Dickens Universe attendee, Christian Lehmann, hosts a Choose Your Own Adventure approach to Dombey and Son, diving into the mechanics of how to read the novel as a Victorian, or a Modern. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Hello, I’m Christian Lehmann, and I want to welcome you to Dickens-to-Go, brought to you by my beloved Dickens Project from the…