BRIEF BIO
Lydia Craig is a sixth-year PhD candidate in the Nineteenth Century Studies program at Loyola University Chicago. She received an MA in English from LUC in 2015 with particular focus on textual studies, and a BA in English and History from the University of Georgia in 2011. Her ongoing dissertation project analyzes Victorian novels for literary and societal responses to social climbing. Recent publications include “‘A Horrid Female Waterman’: The Contentious Legacy of Grace Darling in Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend.” Dickens and Women Re-observed. Edited by Edward Guiliano. Edward Everett Root Publishers Co. Ltd. 2020 and “What Charles Dickens Never Said: Verifying Internet 'Quotes' and Accessing the Works with Online Resources.” Dickens Quarterly, volume 37, number 3, September 2020, pp. 249-263. A book chapter “‘Gazing at all the church and chapel going’: Social Views of Religious Nonconformity in Dickens’ Fiction” is forthcoming in The Theological Dickens, Edited by Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier, 2021.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Loyola University Chicago, ENGL 273-08W, “Nineteenth Century Manners, Race, and Cultural Encounters” (Writing Intensive), Spring 2020
As Substitute Instructor for Dr. J. Brooks Bouson:
Loyola University Chicago, Academic Year Fall 2019, 27 August – 19 September 2019
As Instructor of Record:
Loyola University Chicago, Academic Year Spring 2019
Loyola University Chicago, Academic Year 2016-2017
As TA/ RA:
Research Assistant
Loyola University Chicago, Fall 2019
Teaching Assistant
Loyola University Chicago, Fall 2018
Research Assistant
Loyola University Chicago, Spring 2018
Assistant Director
LUC Writing Center (Lake Shore Campus and Water Tower Campus), May-December 2017
Editorial Assistant
Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs (JCSHESA), June 2016-August 2017
Volunteer Social Media Intern/Writer
Chicago Metro History Education Center (CMHEC), October 2014-September 2016
Writing Tutor
LUC Writing Center (Lake Shore Campus and Water Tower Campus), August 2014-August 2016
DEPARTMENTAL AND UNIVERSITY SERVICE
Volunteer Website Designer
Department of English, Writing Program websites, May 2018-December 2019
Vice President
English Graduate Student Association (EGSA), August 2017-August 2018
Volunteer Judge Supervisor, Student Presentation Judge
GSAC Annual Research Symposium. Loyola University Chicago, April 2016-April 2018
Communications Officer
English Graduate Student Association (EGSA), August 2016-August 2017
OTHER
Member of the Communications Committee
The Dickens Society, July 2018-present
Co-chair of the Communications Committee
The Dickens Society, July 2018-July 2020
ACADEMIC
OTHER:
CREATIVE
Poems: “Sometimes my golden headed mother.” Diminuendo & Cadence. April 2018, “Tick-Tock” (poem) vol. 7, no. 2, The Quint, March 2015
Article: “A Musical Interlude” (article) UGAzine, 2009.
Short story: "Out of the Night." Stillpoint Literary Magazine, 2009.
Currently dissertating: Loyola University Chicago, Class of 2020:
PhD in English (Nineteenth Century Studies Program)
Loyola University Chicago, Class of 2015: Master of Arts in English
The University of Georgia, Franklin College, Class of 2011:
Bachelor of Arts in English,
Bachelor of Arts in History
“Unplaceable Upstarts: Banishing the Class-shifter in Dickens's Fiction.” Victorian Masculinities. The 24th Dickens Society Symposium. Salt Lake City, Utah. 28 July 2019.
“Pinero’s ‘Erotometer’: A Gyrating Theatre Puppet and Moral Outrage in the Edwardian Press" at the 43rd Comparative Drama Conference in Orlando, FL. 5 April 2019.
@GE_Jaggers in 280 characters: Exploring Repressions in the Great Expectations Readalong.” “Neo-Dickens for a New Audience: Reading, Watching, and Teaching Dickens in the 21st Century” on the Dickens Society Sponsored Panel. 50th NeMLA Conference. Washington D.C. 22 March 2019.
"The Devastating Impact of The Lord Wharton Bible Charity in Wuthering Heights" for The Brontë Society at the Brontë 200: Emily Brontë Bicentenary Conference in York, England. 9 September 2018.
“The Topic Paragraph Formula and Essay/Paragraph Equation: Set Essay Structure for an Undergraduate Writing Course.” Focus on Teaching & Learning. Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy. Loyola University Chicago. Chicago, IL. 16 August 2018.
"The Emotive Possibilities of Sensory Disability in American Notes and “Doctor Marigold.”" The 23rd Annual Dickens Symposium. Tübingen, Germany. 30 July 2018.
"Dickens Piecemeal: Revising Authorial Biography in Oak Park Festival’s A Dickens Carol.” The 42nd Comparative Drama Conference. Orlando, FL. 5 April 2018.
"Out-Methodizing Methodists: William Apess’s Religio-Politics in A Son of the Forest." The 59th Midwestern Modern Language Association Convention. Cincinnati, OH. 10 November 2017.
"Pickwick in the Essex Pound: Class Tensions in Wat Tyler’s County." The 22nd Annual Dickens Society Symposium. Boston, MA. 15 July 2017.
“Silver the Parrot: Stevenson’s Marxist Allegory of Unclaimed Wealth and Class Mobility.” "Robert Louis Stevenson: New Perspectives." Edinburgh Napier University. Edinburgh, Scotland. 7 July 2017.
“The Cockney King: Dickens’ Writerly Disdain for Italian/Irish Social Topics.” NAVSA. La Pietra, Florence, Italy. 20 May 2017.
“‘Good Taste/No Taste/Creative Taste’: What to Make of Dickens’ Authorial Palate?” The Midwestern Victorian Society Association Conference. Oberlin, OH. 29 April 2017.
"A Second Alchemist: Jonson’s Parody of Walter Raleigh’s Imperial and Domestic Aims." The 41st Annual Comparative Drama Conference. Orlando, FL. 8 April 2017.
“Nielsen’s Hamlet: Embodying [His] and [Her] War Traumas in the Weimar Republic.” The 48th NeMLA 2017. Baltimore, MD. 26 March 2017.
“The Juvenile and Erudite: A Study of the Marginalia in Newberry Case Y 12. T219.” The 58th MMLA Conference. St. Louis, MO. 11 November 2016.
“Elusive Metonymy: Ideas for Filming Carker’s Teeth in Dombey and Son.” The 21st Annual Dickens Symposium. University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland. 12 July 2016.
"Part of the Whole: Deciphering Elements of the Medieval Stage Through Performance" (co-authored). The 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI. 13 May 2016.
“‘Light, I say, light!’: Iago’s Distortion of Visual Perception in Othello. The 40th Comparative Drama Conference. Baltimore, MD. 29 March 2016.
“Tweeting Tippins: Using Digital Media to Recreate Our Mutual Friend’s Serialization” on the Dickens Society panel. The 47th Annual NeMLA Convention. Hartford, CT. 19 March 2016.
“Water, Rain, and Fire: Element as Metaphor in Great Expectations.” The 20th Annual Dickens Symposium. St. Mary’s University. Halifax, Nova Scotia. 9 July 2015.
“Politic Silence: Female Choruses in Lochhead’s Medea and Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale.” The 39th Comparative Drama Conference. Baltimore, MD. 27 March 2015.