Charles Dickens's Case for Redemption and Love

lunch and talk by Dr. Katie Bell

Sandwich Lunch $10

Dr Katie Bell received her PhD from the University of Leicester, U.K. in English Literature.  Her thesis examines the lasting influence Charles Dickens’s works have had upon other writers, specifically 20^th century American authors of the Southern Gothic genre.  The American writers examined in her thesis are William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor and Carson McCullers.  She obtained her MA in Victorian Studies, also from the University of Leicester, and she worked closely with the Dickens Museum in London as a curatorial assistant and docent.  During her time as a PhD student, Katie has presented her work at the Dickens Society Symposium, The Victorian Studies Seminar of the University of Leicester, the British Association of Victorian Studies, and Dickens Day (held at the Senate House, London) and she has been published both online and in print. She is now based in Decatur, Georgia where she also has been a volunteer researcher and docent for The Wren’s Nest, the home of Atlanta author Joel Chandler Harris, most famous for his “Br’er Rabbit” tales.  She currently teaches high school English in DeKalb County and has written a chapter in the forthcoming text, After Dickens.