University of Buckingham to host Defining Digital Dickens event for national humanities festival

The University of Buckingham has been awarded a grant to help with hosting Defining Digital Dickens, an event in Being Human 2015, the UK’s national festival of the humanities.

This involves a series of workshops, talks, readings, and a closing reception at the Charles Dickens Museum with a chance to view the final day of the Edwin Drood exhibition, curated by the University’s Dr Pete Orford. This has been made possible by a grant from the festival organisers, the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Now in its second year, Being Human is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and the British Academy (BA) with support from the Wellcome Trust.

The University of Buckingham has been awarded funding to hold the event during the festival week, 12 – 22 November.

Defining Digital Dickens will champion the excellence of humanities research being undertaken globally thanks to the University’s English Literature department and help to demonstrate the vitality and relevance of this today. In total 41 grants have been awarded to universities and cultural organisations across the UK to participate in the 11 days of Being Human.

The grant will help the university bring together researchers and local communities to engage with the humanities. Defining Digital Dickens will be part of an 11-day national programme of big ideas, big debates and engaging activities for all ages. The festival will inform, extend and ignite contemporary thinking and imagination around the humanities.

Professor John Drew, director of the University’s Dickens Journals Online project, and Dean of Humanities, said: “I’m delighted that The University of Buckingham will be contributing so much to this year’s Festival as funded participants. It’s a fantastic opportunity for us to bring together all the different online communities we’ve helped create through different strands of our work with different partner organisations: the Centre for Victorian Studies at the University of Leicester, Birkbeck University of London, the international Dickens Fellowship and the Charles Dickens Museum.”