Nicholas Bentley's Outputs (40)

“It wasn’t always like this”: Displacement and the Poetics of Gentrification in Ross Raisin’s Waterline (2011) and Lisa Blower’s Sitting Ducks (2016) (2025)
Journal Article
Bentley, N. (2025). “It wasn’t always like this”: Displacement and the Poetics of Gentrification in Ross Raisin’s Waterline (2011) and Lisa Blower’s Sitting Ducks (2016). English Studies, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838x.2024.2446873

This article examines narratives of gentrification with respect to post-industrial landscapes in the context of contemporary Britain. As Tom Slater (2009) has argued, underneath the rhetoric of regeneration and renewal, gentrification often involves... Read More about “It wasn’t always like this”: Displacement and the Poetics of Gentrification in Ross Raisin’s Waterline (2011) and Lisa Blower’s Sitting Ducks (2016).

Introduction: “Urban Intersections: Class, Race, Gender and Gentrification” (2025)
Journal Article
Bentley, N., & Peacock, J. (in press). Introduction: “Urban Intersections: Class, Race, Gender and Gentrification”. English Studies, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838x.2024.2446875

The contributors to this special issue share the understanding that literature has an important contribution to make to scholarly discussions of gentrification. Their articles on a wide variety of contemporary novelists and poets writing in English r... Read More about Introduction: “Urban Intersections: Class, Race, Gender and Gentrification”.

Stories into song: theory and co-creative practice of adapting literary fiction into pop and rock songs (2024)
Journal Article
Bentley, N., & Peacock, J. (in press). Stories into song: theory and co-creative practice of adapting literary fiction into pop and rock songs. Adaptation, 18(1), Article apae025. https://doi.org/10.1093/adaptation/apae025

Despite the many pop and rock songs adapted from literary texts, there has been little scholarship on the theory and practice of adapting novels and short stories into short-form musical works. This article is part of a British Academy-funded pilot p... Read More about Stories into song: theory and co-creative practice of adapting literary fiction into pop and rock songs.

The Neo-mythological Novel: Re-writing the Epic in Contemporary British Fiction (2024)
Book Chapter
Bentley, N. (2024). The Neo-mythological Novel: Re-writing the Epic in Contemporary British Fiction. In The 2010s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction (263-290). Bloomsbury Publishing

This volume relates the British fiction of the decade to the contexts in which it was written and received in order to examine and explain contemporary trends, such as the rise of a new working-class fiction, the ongoing development of separate natio... Read More about The Neo-mythological Novel: Re-writing the Epic in Contemporary British Fiction.

The 2010s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction (Ed. by N. Bentley) (2023)
Book
Bentley, N., Hubble, N., Horton, E., & Tew, P. (2024). N. Bentley, N. Hubble, P. Tew, E. Horton, E. Horton (co-editor), N. Hubble (co-editor), & P. Tew (co-editor) (Eds.). The 2010s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction (Ed. by N. Bentley). Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350268241

Don't Look Now (2023)
Other
Bentley, N., & Peacock, J. (2023). Don't Look Now. [Audio]

This song is an output from a British Academy-funded Small Research Grant project called 'Stories into Song'. The song was composed, performed and recorded by the project's participants and uses a methodology developed during the project based on the... Read More about Don't Look Now.

Never Let Me Go (2023)
Other
Bentley, N., & Peacock, J. (2023). Never Let Me Go. [Audio]

This song is an output from a British Academy-funded Small Research Grant project called 'Stories into Song'. The song was composed, performed and recorded by Nick Bentley and James Peacock and uses a methodology developed during the project based on... Read More about Never Let Me Go.

Bentley Ghost Towns (2022)
Book Chapter
Bentley, N. (2022). Bentley Ghost Towns. In Locating Classed Subjectivities. Taylor & Francis (Routledge). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003119425-9

This chapter compares very different articulations of British working-class identities and spaces in two recent novels. It begins by critically examining theories of space and working-class identity with reference to a number of theorists and cultura... Read More about Bentley Ghost Towns.

Ghost Towns: The Haunting, Deindustrialized Spaces of Ross Raisin's 'Waterline' and Martin Amis's 'Lionel Asbo' (2022)
Book Chapter
Bentley, N. (2022). Ghost Towns: The Haunting, Deindustrialized Spaces of Ross Raisin's 'Waterline' and Martin Amis's 'Lionel Asbo'. In S. Lee (Ed.), Locating Classed Subjectivities: Intersections of Space and Working-Class Life in Nineteenth-, Twentieth-, and Twenty-First-Century British Writing (146--166). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003119425-9

Trailing Postmodernism: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Zadie Smith’s NW, and the Metamodern (2018)
Journal Article
Bentley. (2018). Trailing Postmodernism: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Zadie Smith’s NW, and the Metamodern. English Studies, 723-743. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2018.1510611

This article examines David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (2004) and Zadie Smith's NW (2012) against recent theories of the post-postmodern. It argues that although both texts can be seen to be gesturing towards a reconstructive relationship with the absolu... Read More about Trailing Postmodernism: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Zadie Smith’s NW, and the Metamodern.

The 1950s: A Decade of Modern British Fiction (2018)
Book
Bentley, N., Ferrebe, A., & Hubble, N. (Eds.). (2018). The 1950s: A Decade of Modern British Fiction. Bloomsbury Publishing

Chapter 2. Questing for the post-postmodern: David Mitchell’s number9dream (2018)
Book Chapter
Bentley, N. (2018). Chapter 2. Questing for the post-postmodern: David Mitchell’s number9dream. In David Mitchell: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (39-52). Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474262132.0008

Nick Bentley This chapter argues that number9dream represents a quest narrative in terms of both content and form. The novel begins by inhabiting the postmodernity of late-twentieth-century Tokyo, a setting in which the main character, Eiji Miyake, s... Read More about Chapter 2. Questing for the post-postmodern: David Mitchell’s number9dream.

Seams (performance show, Keele Chapel, June 2018) (2018)
Other
Morgan, C., Reynolds, C., Seabridge, S., Crawley, S., Bentley, N., Skentelbery, D., & Rogerson, P. (2018). Seams (performance show, Keele Chapel, June 2018)

Punk Fiction; Punk in Fiction (2018)
Book Chapter
Bentley, N. (2018). Punk Fiction; Punk in Fiction. In Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media (41-58). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73189-6_3

Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media Teenage Dreams (2018)
Book
Bentley. (2018). Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media Teenage Dreams

This collection explores the representation, articulation and construction of youth subcultures in a range of texts and contexts.

Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media: Teenage Dreams (Ed. N Bentley) (2018)
Book
Bentley, N. (2018). N. Bentley, B. Johnson, & A. Zieleniec (Eds.). Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media: Teenage Dreams (Ed. N Bentley). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73189-6

Narratives of trauma and loss in Caryl Phillips's Crossing the River and A Distant Shore (2018)
Journal Article
Bentley, N. (2018). Narratives of trauma and loss in Caryl Phillips's Crossing the River and A Distant Shore. Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 40, 21--31. https://doi.org/10.4000/ces.4448

This article argues that trauma is at the heart of Caryl Phillips's fiction with particular reference to two novels, Crossing the River (1993) and A Distant Shore (2003). It assess a number of writiers associated with trauma theory and takes issue wi... Read More about Narratives of trauma and loss in Caryl Phillips's Crossing the River and A Distant Shore.

From Prog to Punk: Cultural Politics and the Form of the Novel in Jonathan Coe's The Rotters’ Club (2018)
Book Chapter
Bentley, N. (2018). From Prog to Punk: Cultural Politics and the Form of the Novel in Jonathan Coe's The Rotters’ Club. In P. Tew (Ed.), Jonathan Coe: Contemporary British Satire (109--124). Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350027701.0013

Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On: The Politics of Youth in 1950s Fiction (2018)
Book Chapter
Bentley, N. (2018). Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On: The Politics of Youth in 1950s Fiction. In The 1950's - A Decade of Modern British Fiction (177--204). Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350011540.ch-006

Contemporary British Fiction: Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism (2017)
Book
Bentley, N. (2017). Contemporary British Fiction: Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism. Palgrave Macmillan

This essential guide provides a comprehensive survey of the most important debates in the criticism and research of contemporary British fiction. Nick Bentley analyses the criticism surrounding a range of British novelists including Monica Ali, Marti... Read More about Contemporary British Fiction: Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism.