Smart Talks. Cold Drinks.
Presenting THINK & DRINK – where the curious gather. This ongoing lecture series delivers a wide array of topics that generate fresh perspectives, ideas, and discussion. These community-driven events are powered by a collaboration between UMKC, Linda Hall Library, The Third Place Historian, and Casual Animal Brewing Company.
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december 17 - Scrooge’s Politics of Humbug: Reading A Christmas Carol In Its Historical and Spiritual Context
Speaker: Dr. Stephen Himes, Teacher and Author, Living Literature
Today, we recognize A Christmas Carol as a morality tale about greed, with Charles Dickens becoming “The Man Who Invented Christmas” by discovering the Christmas spirit to write a hit.
But, in its 1843 context, Dickens’s novella is a deeply political response to the horrors of the Industrial Revolution, the exploitative rise of the British Empire, and the political reaction to the New Poor Law of 1834.
Dickens issued a Christian appeal to his middle class readers, drawing upon Dante for its famous Past, Present, Yet to Come structure. And, drawing upon Christmas’ roots as a winter solstice festival, Dickens borrowed archetypes from Celtic folklore for the spirits of Scrooge’s epiphany.
It’s not just the most popular story in the English language: When considered in its historical, political, economic, and religious context, A Christmas Carol is a Great Work of Literature.
speaker bio:
Dr. Stephen Himes is a veteran literature teacher, with a J.D.from the University of Kansas School of Law and an Ed.D. with an emphasis in Civil Rights in Education Law from the University of Missouri. More importantly, Dr. Himes is a member of the International Charles Dickens Society. He has presented in London and Boston on the politics of A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol and has led study abroad courses on Charles Dickens in London and Paris. Currently, he publishes the Living Literature substack, a project about revitalizing the teaching of Humanities in the age of AI.