About the Dickens Project

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target="_blank">Shop</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row" id="sprflt"> <div class="main-content" id="main" role="main"> <div class="row breadcrumbs"><p><a href="../index.html"> Home</a> / About</p></div> <h1 class="page-title" id="title">About the Dickens Project</h1><div class="banners bannerBox" id="bannerBox"><img alt="Monterey Bay" id="banner" src="images/monterey.jpg"/><p class="caption">The Dickens Project is headquartered above Monterey Bay on the beautiful campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz.</p></div><div class="content contentBox"><p align="justify" style="text-align: left;">Arguably the first modern novelist, Charles Dickens's concern with social and environmental issues, urban crime, child abuse, poverty, and exploitation, makes him very much a writer for our own time, partly because he is so much a writer of his own time. The Victorian Period faced, and in some cases, created, the same problems that concern us today. Through the study of Dickens and some of his contemporaries, we engage in an ongoing social commentary that is still relevant. As a writer, Dickens is modern in his self-consciousness about the act of writing fiction. His novels explore aspects of the writer's dilemma in ways that invite new critical methods.</p> <p align="justify" style="text-align: left;">Concerned with these simultaneously historical and modern issues, the Dickens Project consists of faculty and graduate students from major American and international universities. Founded in 1981 and headquartered at UC Santa Cruz, the <a href="consortium-institutions.html">Dickens Project consortium</a> now consists of over 40 colleges and universities from across the United States and overseas.</p> <p align="justify" style="text-align: left;">The Project creates opportunities for collaborative research on Dickens and the Victorian age and disseminates research findings through annual conferences, institutes, and publications. It supports graduate students' professional development and produces curricular material for teaching Victorian literature at both secondary and post-secondary levels.</p> <p align="justify" style="text-align: left;">The Dickens Project is a <a href="https://www.ucop.edu/research-innovation/programs-and-initiatives/state-and-systemwide-research/multicampus-research-units.html">Multi-campus Research Unit (MRU)</a> of the University of California. Its research activities have been supported by extramural grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the U.S. Department of Education, the California Council for the Humanities, the California Arts Council, the Exxon Education Foundation, dues from member schools, and private gifts. Activities for the general public are supported in part by contributions to a private, non-profit organization, the <a href="../support/friends.html">Friends of the Dickens Project</a>.</p></div> </div> <div aria-label="Secondary site navigation" class="sidebar" id="subNav" role="navigation"> <ul><li><a class="current" href="index.html">About the Dickens Project</a></li><li><a href="consortium.html">Dickens Project Consoritum</a></li><li><a href="consortium-institutions.html">Consortium Member Institutions</a></li><li><a href="consortium-publications.html">Consortium Publications</a></li><li><a href="contact.html">Contact Us</a></li></ul> </div> </div> <div class="main-footer" role="contentinfo"> <div class="row" id="footer"> <div class="footer-left"> <img alt="University of California" class="seal" height="84" src="https://static.ucsc.edu/_responsive/images/logos/uc-seal.svg" width="84"/> <div class="address home"> <div class="location">UC Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, Ca 95064</div> <div class="copyright">©2025 Regents of the University of California. 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About the Dickens Project