The 30th Annual Dickens Society Symposium

Theme: “Dirty Dickens”
Draft program available here

July 14-17, 2025

Host: The Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning (CITL), The College of General Studies (CGS), Boston University (BU)

CITL/CGS will be happy to welcome you (or welcome you back) to BU and Boston!

The “Dirty Dickens” theme of the 2025 Dickens Society Symposium has inspired intriguing proposals, from dirty secrets and dirty puns, to Dickens’s evocation of mud and the muddy Thames, to dirty business and murky laws.  There will also be presentations on themes such as global Dickens, Dickensian afterlives, Dickens in conversation with other authors, teaching Dickens, and more.  The presentations and conversations promise to be excellent!

Boston University is in the heart of the city of Boston, one of the most historic and attractive cities in the US.  Dickens visited Boston, a city of which he was particularly fond, on both of his US tours (1842, 1867-8) and befriended many of its celebrated intellectuals. There are many sites to visit in the area related to his trips here, including the Omni Parker House, where Dickens stayed during his 1867-68 tour and where we will be holding the annual Dickens Dinner (for the third time!). The Parker House has numerous items on display from Dickens’s rooms, along with a mini-museum of other historic artifacts related to the long list of famous (or soon to be famous) folks who have walked its halls.