Personal profile

Biography

Stephen Benson joined UEA in 2005. He has an MA and PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. Stephen works on modern and contemporary literature, with a particular interest in relations between literature and music, and between literature and the visual arts. His publications include Cycles of Influence: Fiction, Folktale, Theory (Wayne State UP, 2003) and Literary Music (Ashgate, 2006), and as co-editor, Writing the Field Recording: Sound, Word, Environment (EUP, 2018). He is also co-editor, with UEA colleague Clare Connors, of Creative Criticism: an Anthology and Guide (EUP, 2014), a volume devoted to forms of invention in contemporary critical practice. Most recently, and prompted by the anthology, he has been working on the theory and practice of description in contemporary literature.

Stephen has published essays on Beckett and sound, on contemporary opera, on narrative theory and on relations between contemporary fiction and the folktale. He is editor of the modern and contemporary section of the Edinburgh Companion to Literature and Music (EUP, 2020). Both Cycles of Influence and Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale (an edited volume, published by Wayne State UP in 2008) were selected as Choice Outstanding Academic Titles in their respective years of publication.

Key Research Interests

Literature and music, literature and sound, literature and the visual arts, contemporary writing (both creative and critical), literature and the folktale.

Areas of Expertise

Contemporary writing (critical and creative); literature and music, including opera; literature and sound; the folktale.