Not to be snobbish or melodramatic, but without Dickens many common words might have been confined to the dustbins of history. He might induce boredom in junior high students, but his career, spectacularly narratable and the subject of numerous biographies, brought a number of words from the messiness of orality into the messiness of print.
This past weekend I attended the North American Victorian Studies Association conference, where I presented about my current project. I was at the NASSR conference literally the weekend before I started my current position, but this was the first conference I attended since I started teaching. So this is the first time I’ve really felt
This weekend I’ll be heading to Madison, Wisconsin for the NAVSA conference. I’ll be discussing my latest project, which investigates the intersections of literature, science, and education in the nineteenth century. I’ve posted below the abstract of my paper, scheduled for 1:30 on Friday afternoon. ________________________ “Now what I want is Facts,” says Thomas Gradgrind