18th- and 19th-Century Group

The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century group encourages students to explore topics across more than one century. Students can define the temporal limits of their research in ways that most productively engage the subjects under investigation.

Composed of Florence Boos, Lori Branch, Eric Gidal, William Kupersmith, Teresa Mangum, Judith Pascoe, and Garrett Stewart, the group fosters work on a variety of literary genres employing the interpretive approaches suggested by narrative, Marxist, and postcolonial theories, as well as by such disparate cultural phenomena as the rise of the museum, the encroachments of the British Empire, and the evolution of religious and philosophical thought.

Students working in this area are automatically members of the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Colloquium, which unites students and faculty of this broad historical period from the fields of art history, music, theater, political science, and the history of medicine. Students are also encouraged to draw on the resources of the Center for the Book, which, in conjunction with the splendid eighteenth- and nineteenth-century holdings in the Special Collections of the University of Iowa's Main Library, provides material means for understanding print innovations ranging from the hand-press production of the early novel to the Victorian typography of William Morris.

Thanks to the generosity of English Department, two English Ph.D. students in English are selected each year to attend the week-long Dickens Universe summer seminar held at the University of California at Santa Cruz the first week of August. The University of Iowa is one of over thirty international research universities that are members of the Dickens Project .

• Dickens Project
• 18th/19th-century Interdisciplinary Colloquium

Faculty