I spent all of last week at UC Santa Cruz at a conference/summer camp thing called Dickens Universe. At first, I confess that I thought a whole week at something called "Dickens Universe" that considered itself a Dickens summer camp would maybe be a little corny. It turned out, though, to be totally phenomenal.
So, it works like this: several universities around the US and UK are affiliated with the Dickens Project and every year they send faculty and grad students to UCSC for Dickens Universe. We spend the week discussing one of Dickens' novels (Hard Times, this year). Undergrads and members of the community (mostly retired people) also come. We all attended multiple lectures every day by some of the top professors in the field. The faculty also put on discussion seminars for the grad students. I was in a discussion section with a prof from UCLA and prof from SUNY Buffalo and about 10 other grad students. Both profs were totally phenomenal, as were the other students in the seminar. All the grad students also were able to choose a workshop to attend throughout the week (leading discussions with the community, writing workshop, presentation workshop and pedagogy workshop). I was part of the pedagogy workshop, and we talked about issues regarding teaching Victorian Literature and worked up syllabi, which was great. I also attended a seminar on publishing, which was totally helpful as well. All of the top universities send students and faculty. It was actually kind of crazy--Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Standford, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Indiana, NYU, Vanderbilt, several other UC schools, were all there. Oh, and South Carolina. Go gamecocks. It was so great to interact with other students interested in Victorian Lit--I can't even express how great it was. All of the Ivy Leaguers were so fun and nice and approachable and normal. I loved everyone I met and I made some life-long friendships. Also, because Dickens Universe is so low-key (everyone goes by first name, and we don't have to wear business dress--jeans or slacks were absolutely the norm), we also all had the opportunity to talk to and get to know the top professors of the field. Seriously, it couldn't have been a better experience and will affect the rest of my life as a scholar.
I don't have many pics yet from the week, but here's one. We're at the beach building Coketown--the industrial town from Hard Times. Me, Richard (Harvard) and Bo (UT Austin). It was really cool. Richard makes the best drip castles.
