Excellent scholarship by Marah Gubar, Claudia Nelson, Victoria Ford Smith, M. O. Grenby, Alexandra Valint, and others has more than demonstrated the importance of children’s literature to nineteenth-century culture more broadly. My first book contributed to that conversation, arguing that Romantic-era children’s tales helped shape the reading habits of the Victorians. Last summer, I signed
In this post I describe an exercise that helps students connect words and illustrations. I used it this semester in my “Disney’s Victorians” course, and it has a historical frame that is particularly appropriate for teaching a Victorian novel (especially Dickens). But it might be useful if you’re teaching any text that combines words and
Like most professors, I don’t usually teach during the summers. But that doesn’t mean we don’t work. In fact, since so much time during the semester is taken up with planning classes, grading papers, and meetings (with students, committees, etc.), the summer might be when the most academic work gets done — if by academic