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In this essay I examine a variety of approaches to the contemporary postmodern self. I argue that this diverse literature may be analytically distinguished along two general lines. The first concerns institutional or structural claims regarding what a self “is” or “is not.” The second focuses instead on what a self “does” or “does not do.” I conclude by recommending a more comprehensive approach that takes into account the salience of both of these analytical dimensions in the contemporary debates over the postmodern self.

Drawing from two years of multi-sited fieldwork about international backpacking in Central America, I make important connections between the backpacking escape motive, the backpacker hostel, and tourism. I explain how backpackers experience the hostel as their “home base” and “home away from home” to escape into local cultures and natural environments that exist outside of it and an international community of travelers that convenes inside of it. I refer to theories on modern tourism, the backpacking escape motive, and the concept of community. I also theorize how the global spread of modern amenities and tourism shapes backpackers' escape experiences.

The accounts of moral reform that nineteenth-century convicts offered the officials in charge were frequently characterized by such uniformity that it caused Dickens to mistrust their sincerity and to brand them scornfully as “pattern penitence.” Unlike Dickens, however, prison officials were more willing to credit the questionable authenticity of “patterned” repentance. The paper argues that rather than an effect of personal gullibility, reformers’ attitudes can be seen as an outcome of specific interpretative strategies which, in turn, constituted a response to several institutional challenges facing the nineteenth-century Penitentiary.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a profile of the novelist Charles Dickens.

Several biographies and articles about the life of Charles Dickens were examined, to see if there was evidence that he experienced mental health problems.

While Dickens has been acclaimed for his ability to authentically portray the living conditions of the poor in the nineteenth-century Britain, there is comparatively little historical record of the fact that he may have experienced bipolar disorder. This paper suggests that he displayed many of the characteristic symptoms of bipolar.

The story of Dickens’ own childhood is an amazing example of personal resilience. It no doubt enhanced the quality of his writing, but it may also have “sown the seeds” of a later mental illness.

So much attention has been focused on the colourful characters from Dickens’ novels, but little on the problems of the man himself.

The story of Charles Dickens is as fascinating as any of the fictional characters he created, if not even more intriguing. His story confirms the link between writers, creativity and mood disorders.

Given the huge attention and worldwide acclaim paid to the books of Charles Dickens, which have inspired numerous films as well as musicals, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to the author himself and his struggles with mental illness.