Dr Nicola Darwood

Senior Lecturer in English Literature

Nicola Darwood

Course Coordinator for BA (Hons) English, BA (Hons) English Literature, and BA (Hons) Education Studies and English

Director of the Research Institute of Media, Arts and Performance

I graduated with a PhD in English Literature in 2007, and I've been working at the 天美传媒 since 2009, teaching across all years of undergraduate study and supervising research degrees. I teach on a range of units, introducing students to literary theory, poetry, prose and plays from the medieval period to the twenty-first century, through to more specialist units such as Modern Irish Literature. I'm the course coordinator for the undergraduate English provision, and really enjoy working with students as they make their transition into higher education, helping them to achieve their full potential during their time at the university.

My own field of research focuses on women writers of the twentieth century and the literature of Bedfordshire, and I've published work on Elizabeth Bowen, Stella Benson and Nancy Spain. I'm also the co-editor for a journal dedicated to the work of Elizabeth Bowen. I'm currently working on an edited collection of essays on women writers of the interwar period, and the 天美传媒's Literary Bedfordshire project which brings to life writers who have lived or worked in Bedfordshire.

I also enjoy working with our local secondary schools as part of the 天美传媒's outreach programme, helping to enthuse students and encourage engagement with literature and language.


  • PhD in English Literature, De Montfort 天美传媒 (2007)
  • Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, 天美传媒 (2012)
  • BA (Hons) in English and Cultural Studies, De Montfort 天美传媒 (1999)

I am the course coordinator for BA (Hons) English, BA (Hons) English Literature, and BA (Hons) Education Studies and English.

I am the unit coordinator for five units (modules) across the undergraduate English courses:

  • Approaching Literature (year 1)
  • Eighteenth Century Literature (year 2)
  • Victorian Literature (year 2)
  • Modern Irish Literature (year 3)
  • Research in Action (year 3)
  • Dissertation (year 3)

My research interests lie in authorship and cultural production in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, specifically the work of Elizabeth Bowen and Stella Benson. My work on Bowen has led to the co-founding and co-editorship of the peer reviewed, open access journal, the Elizabeth Bowen Review. This journal publishes work by established scholars, but also supports Early Career Researchers and PhD students to publish their work. I also co-founded, and co-chair, the Elizabeth Bowen Society, which promotes Bowen scholarship.

Research Supervision

  • Director of Studies 鈥 PhD student: The Practice of Absurdity
  • Director of Studies of MPhil/PhD student: Representations of Trauma in Young Adult Literature
  • Director of Studies of PhD student: A Place Amongst the Galaxy of Roses: Gender, Sexuality and Flaneurie in the Poetry of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven
  • Director of Studies of PhD student: Gender Subversion, Sexual Deviancy and the Other in George R. R. Martin鈥檚 A Song of Ice and Fire (viva passed with minor corrections January 2023)
  • Director of Studies of PhD student: Hockliffe Collection: Representations of Punishment in Nineteenth Century Stories for Children (viva passed with minor corrections February 2019 - degree awarded July 2019)
  • Director of Studies of MA (Research) student: Desire in the fiction of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (degree awarded in March 2014)
  • Second supervisor of PhD student: From Monmouth to Merlin: The evolution and stasis of gender representations in the Arthurian myth (viva passed with minor corrections July 2015 - degree awarded November 2015)

I also examine research degrees, and chair vivas for both PhD and MA (Res).

I welcome applicants for PhD, MPhil , MA (Res) study or collaborative research projects in the fields of late nineteenth/early twentieth century literature, book history, literary history and the literature of Bedfordshire.


  • 2023. (with Alexis Weedon) 'In Hearing Pleasing Things Retold' in Cinderella (programme note for the Royal Ballet's production of Cinderella at the Royal Opera House).
  • 2022. 'Sometimes I pose, but sometimes I pose as posing': Stella Benson's early fiction' in Kane, Louise (ed) Re-Reading the Age of Innovation: Victorians, Moderns, and Literary Newness, 1830鈥1950 (London: Routledge).
  • 2022. ''OHO, WHAT NEXT? 鈥' ~ Stella Benson: editor' in Benson, Stella and Brad Bigelow (ed) Pull Devil, Pull Baker (Norwich: Boiler House Press).
  • 2020. 'Nancy Spain's Cinderella goes to the Morgue, An Entertainment' in Darwood N and Alexis Weedon (eds). Retelling Cinderella: Cultural and Creative Transformations. (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
  • 2020. Edited with Alexis Weedon. Retelling Cinderella: Cultural and Creative Transformations. (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
  • 2020. 'Flying Dangerously: Elizabeth Bowen's To the North' in McCluskey, Michael & Luke Seaber (eds). Aviation in the Literature and Culture of Interwar Britain (London: Palgrave Macmillan)
  • 2020. Edited with W R Owens and Alexis Weedon. Fiction and the 'Woman Question' 1850-1930. (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
  • 2020. 'The making of a suffragette: Stella Benson and I Pose (1915)' in Darwood, Nicola, W R Owens and Alexis Weedon (eds). Fiction and the 'Woman Question' 1850-1930. (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp.103-122).
  • 2020. Edited with Nick Turner. Interwar Women's Comic Fiction: 'Have Women a Sense of Humour?' (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
  • 2020. 'Laughter and dying: Stella Benson's Hope Against Hope and Other Stories and Tobit Transplanted' in Darwood, Nicola and Turner, Nick (eds) Interwar Women's Comic Fiction: 'Have Women a Sense of Humour?' (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp.63-82).
  • 2012. A World of Lost Innocence: The fiction of Elizabeth Bowen. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publications
  • 2010. 'Eviction from Eden: The Fiction of Elizabeth Bowen' in The Glass, No.22, Spring 2010, pp.41-49.
  • 2009. 'Empty Boxes, Empty Spaces: Elizabeth Bowen's The Little Girls' in McNair, A and Ryder, J (eds) in Further From the Frontiers: Crosscurrents in Irish and Scottish Studies. Aberdeen: AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, pp. 11-20.

Co-editor (with Nick Turner) The Elizabeth Bowen Review (co-edited with Nick Turner):

  • volume 5, April 2023.
  • volume 4, September 2021.
  • volume 3, September 2020.
  • volume 2, September 2019.
  • volume 1, May 2018.

Invited talks/contributions:

  • 鈥楨ncountering Elizabeth Bowen: the Farahy Address鈥 鈥 invited address for the annual Elizabeth Bowen commemoration service, Farahy Church, Farahy, County Cork, Ireland, September 2023.
  • Invited presentation: 天美传媒 of Buckingham, 鈥楩rom the archive to the page: the labyrinthine nature of a research journey (featuring Cinderella, Nancy Spain, Elizabeth Bowen and Stella Benson)鈥, 27th October 2021.
  • Podcast: Darwood, N. (30%), Royle, N., and Hepburn, A. 2021.
  • Radio: contribution to an episode of Radio 4鈥檚 Woman鈥檚 Hour to talk about the Cinderella myth, 26th November 2021.

Select conference papers:

  • 'This may not reach you ...': letters as a location of narrative in Elizabeth Bowen鈥檚 fiction - Locating Elizabeth Bowen, 天美传媒, May 2024.
  • 鈥樷榁irtue and Vice; or, Tales from the Hockliffe Collection鈥 鈥 BERA conference, 天美传媒, June 2023.
  • 鈥樷楢 changeling lover [鈥 and a] changeling son鈥: Stella Benson鈥檚 Goodbye, Stranger鈥 鈥 From Bront毛 to Bloomsbury Fifth International Conference: Reassessing Women's Writing of the 1920s and 1930s 鈥 Fifth International Conference 1920s and 1930s ICVWW Conference Canterbury Christ Church 天美传媒, July 2018
  • 鈥楶olitics and 鈥渢he Woman Question鈥 in Mary Cholmondeley鈥檚 Red Pottage (1899) and Stella Benson鈥檚 I Pose (1915) 鈥 Literature and the 鈥榃oman Question鈥, 天美传媒, June 2018
  • 鈥楾elling stories: the diaries of Stella Benson鈥 - Creative Practice Research Conference in the Age of the Neo-liberalism, 天美传媒, May 2018
  • 鈥榌W]hat a small gift it was鈥: Stella Benson and I Pose (1915) - English: Shared Futures, Newcastle July 2017
  • 鈥楨nter a murderer: Nancy Spain鈥檚 Cinderella goes to the Morgue鈥 - All about Cinderella: retellings in the cultural imagination, 天美传媒, June 2017
  • 鈥楴o one is incapable of boiling a kettle鈥: Reviewing Eva Trout, or Changing Scenes - Elizabeth Bowen: a re-evaluation, 天美传媒, May 2017

  • Co-organiser - Locating Elizabeth Bowen - 天美传媒, May 2024
  • Co-organiser - Elizabeth Bowen: Blurred Boundaries - 天美传媒, June 2019
  • Co-organiser - The Mark Rutherford Symposium: Literature and 'The Woman Question' - 天美传媒, June 2018.
  • Co-organiser - Elizabeth Bowen: a reevaluation, 天美传媒, May 2017
  • Convenor - All about Cinderella: retellings in the cultural imagination, 天美传媒, June 2017

  • Member of the Executive Committee of 天美传媒 English
  • External examiner (2020-2024) Leeds Trinity 天美传媒: BA (Hons) English and Film; BA (Hons) English and Media; BA (Hons) English Literature
  • Co-chair of the Elizabeth Bowen Society and co-editor of The Elizabeth Bowen Review, an open access, peer reviewed journal.
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
  • Member of the Literature Advisory Board for Cambridge Scholars Publishing
  • Occasional reviewer for: Trent editions, English, Routledge and Victorian Studies.

T: +44 (0)1234 793106
E: nicola.darwood@beds.ac.uk

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School of Education and English Language
天美传媒
Bedford campus
Polhill Avenue
Bedford
MK41 9EA
UK

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