Dickens Re-Visioned 3301-LB2050
The aim of the course is to discuss selected works of Charles Dickens through the prism of their cultural legacy and global circulation and to consider how adaptations serve as interpretations and re-representations of the source texts and as their cultural afterlife. The topics discussed in the classroom will explore the following aspects of the scholarship on the author and his oeuvre:
• biographical Dickens
• “The Inimitable Boz” as a public figure
• Dickens, the theatre and theatricality
• Dickens and the Victorian melodrama
• the performative nature of Dickens’s characters
• Dickens and film
• Dickens’s public readings of his own works
• Dickens’s cross-class appeal
• the use of Dickens in education
• Dickens’s global circulation
• Dickens and the heritage industry
• adopting and adapting Dickens
• Dickens’s language
• Dickens and the development of detective and thriller fiction
• Charles Dickens Museum (48 Doughty Street, London) and its role in preserving and popularizing Dickens’s cultural heritage
• Dickens in the internet age: the role of Dickens Journals Online (http://djo.org.uk), The Dickens Project (http://dickens.ucsc.edu), The Charles Dickens Letters Project (http://dickensletters.com) in popularizing and upholding Dickens’s literary and cultural heritage.
• Dickens and the Gothic
• Dickens and Illustration
• Dickens and Victorian popular culture
• Dickens and the uses of history
• Dickens and America
• Dickens and the law
• postcolonial Dickens
Education at language level B2+.
First-cycle studies (Bachelor's degree programme)
Type of course
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge
Students will be able to:
K_W02 understand key terminology, well established methods and theories of literary studies and culture studies within English studies in areas relevant to the course subject.
K_W03 describe methodology and recent developments in English literary studies and culture studies in areas relevant to the course subject.
K_W05 list the characteristics of English grammar, syntax, phonology, phonetics, morphology and pragmatics on an advanced level, especially in areas relevant to the course subject.
K_W07 explain principles of designing literary and culture studies, with special focus on selecting appropriate methods and tools in formulating research questions in areas relevant to the course subject.
Abilities
Students will be able to:
K_U01 employ the terminology and methodological tools from literary studies and culture studies in areas relevant to the course subject.
K_U02 employ the methodology of literary and culture studies within English studies, respecting the ethical norms and copyright law
K_U04 implement knowledge to describe a problem and identify means to solve it, thereby completing a project in literary studies and in culture and religion studies
K_U11 design one’s own development, particularly by the completion of a research project in areas relevant to the course subject
Social competences
Students will be ready to:
K_K02 undertake life-long learning and personal development, applying skills and competences to select subjects and projects optimally suiting one’s personal interests
K_K03 value responsibility for one’s own work and respect the work of others, adhering to the professional and ethical norms in various projects and other activities undertaken at work, voluntary services, etc.
In class discussions students acquire skills of expressing their thoughts in a clear, coherent, logical and precise manner, with the use of language which is correct grammatically, lexically and phonetically.
Assessment criteria
- Active participation in classes
- Two mid-term tests (passing score: 60%)
No more than 2 absences are allowed.
Students who fail an exam may write it again during the resit examination session.
Bibliography
Primary sources:
Selected works of Charles Dickens, e.g. Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son, Christmas Books and Stories, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Our Mutual Friend, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, etc.,
Secondary sources:
• Patten, Robert L., Jordan, John O., and Catherine Waters, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Charles Dickens. Oxford: OUP, 2018.
• Schlicke, Paul, ed. The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens. Oxford: OUP, 2011.
• Jordan, John O., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens. Cambridge, CUP, 2001.
• Paroissien, David, ed. A Companion to Charles Dickens. Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
• John, Juliet. Dickens’s Villains. Melodrama, Character, Popular Culture. Oxford: OUP, 2001.
• Ledger, Sally and Holly Furneaux. Charles Dickens in Context. Cambridge: CUP, 2011.
• Cardwell, Sarah. Adaptation Revisited: Television and the Classic Novel. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
• Bolton, H. Philip. Dickens Dramatized. London: Mansell, 1987.
• Davis, Paul. The Lives and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
• Andrews, Malcolm. Charles Dickens and his Performing Selves. Oxford: OUP, 2006.
• Leitch, Thomas. The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Tambling, Jeremy. Dickens, Violence and the Modern State. Dreams of the Scaffold. Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.
• Tambling, Jeremy. Dickens’ Novels as Poetry: Allegory and the Literature of the City. New York and London, Routledge, 2015.
• Streaky Bacon: A Guide to Victorian Adaptations. http://www.streakybacon.net/
• Burdett, Carolyn and Hilary Fraser, eds. “The Nineteenth-Century Digital Archive.” Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century
• Marsh, Joss. Starring Charles Dickens: Multi-Media ‘Boz’ and the Culture of Celebrity. New York and London: Routledge, 2019.
• Charles Dickens Museum London
http://dickensmuseum.com/
• Dickens in America TV Series (Miriam Margoyles) David Lane, Contemporary British Drama, 2011.
• Dickens’s Women. Co-written and performed by Miriam Margolyes, BBC Audiobooks, 2012.
• A selection of film and stage adaptations of Dickens’s works
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: