Nick Hubble

Nick Hubble is Senior Lecturer in English and Deputy Director of the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing (BCCW). He is a Co-Investigator on the three-year (2009-2012) ESRC-funded Fiction and the Cultural Mediation of Ageing Project (FCMAP), which is part of the New Dynamics of Ageing programme.

Nick holds a BA in Philosophy and Literature (Essex), a PGCE in Secondary English (Sussex), an MA in Critical Theory (Sussex), a DPhil in English Literature (Sussex) and a PGCert in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (Brunel). He has formerly worked as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Suburban Studies, Kingston University and as Lecturer in English at the University of Central England, Birmingham. He has also taught for the English Subject Group at the University of Sussex and held the position of Honorary Research Fellow at the Mass-Observation Archive.

Research Overview

Enlightening the Future' Imagination and the Suburb' . Most recently, he was one of the five authors of the 2011 Demos report Coming of Age, drawing on FCMAP research.

Teaching Activity

Nick teaches widely across the field of twentieth and twenty-first century English Literature, including popular genres. He currently leads the following modules at Brunel: EN1019 Popular Fictions; EN3036 Post-Millennial British Fiction; and EN3XXX British Science Fiction and Fantasy. He has supervised numerous third–year undergraduate dissertations on subjects including Mass-Observation, modernism, intermodernism, contemporary fiction and genre fiction.

Nick is a member of the team delivering the MA in Contemporary Literature and Culture, for which he leads the module EN5515 Popular Genres and Fictions. He has supervised many MA  dissertations on topics such as contemporary literature, critical theory, science fiction, film noir and graphic novels.

Nick is currently supervising several PhD projects on topics such as the Culture novels of Iain M Banks, transformations in fantasy fiction and twenty-first century everyday life. He is happy to consider research projects in any area of modern and contemporary literature, including genre fiction. His own interests encompass figures and organisations such as J.G. Ballard, Pat Barker, William Empson, Ford Madox Ford, Katherine Mansfield, George Orwell, Christopher Priest, Stevie Smith, H.G. Wells, the English Surrealists and Mass-Observation. Other specialisms include ageing studies, the emerging field of intermodernism, suburban culture across the long twentieth century, middlebrow studies and science fiction and fantasy. He welcomes email queries concerning any of the above or related topics.

Since joining Brunel in September 2007, he has co-organised the following major international conferences and seminar series:

‘Liminal London’, the 2008 edition of the annual Literary London conference (resulting in three published collections, edited or co-edited by Nick);

The BCCW Contemporary British Fiction Decades Seminar Series (resulting in a major book series, ‘The Decade Series: British Fiction’, forthcoming from Continuum, co-edited by Nick);

The BCCW Narrative Lives Seminar Series (publication in preparation);
The FCMAP New Cultures of Ageing Conference in 2011 (publications in preparation);

The annual London Intermodernism Seminar, launched at Brunel in 2011.

Future events being organised or co-organised by Nick under the aegis of the BCCW include:

A three-day conference on Mass Observation (2012),
A one-day conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy (2012),
And both a symposium and a conference on George Orwell (2011, 2013/4).

From the reviews of Mass-Observation and Everyday Life: Culture, History, Theory (2006; second edition, 2010) :

‘An insightful new history’ Caleb Crain, New Yorker, 11 September 2006;

‘Hubble’s account is much needed, and the depth of detail and analysis that is evident in it ensures that it is likely to remain an essential guide to Mass-Observation for years to come.’ Ben Highmore, Textual Practice, 20(4), 2006;

‘excellent appreciation of Harrison and his fellow MO co-founders’ Susan D. Pennybacker, History Workshop Journal, 64 (1), 2007;

‘an important book ... invaluable to anyone wanting to understand what lay behind Mass Observation and how the organisation developed’ Mark Allen, Literature & History, 17(1), Spring 2008;

‘Hubble provides an exhaustive investigation into the origins of Mass-Observation studies [and] their influence on successive generations of intellectuals’ Margo Anderson, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 39(2), Autumn 2008.

From the reviews of Nick’s chapter, ‘The Intermodern Assumption of the Future: William Empson and Mass-Observation’ in Kristin Bluemel, ed., Intermodernism: Literary Culture in Mid-Twentieth-Century Britain, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009, 171-188

‘Essays that are particularly strong in terms of both analysis and theory [include] … one on Mass Observation by Nick Hubble’ J.M. Utell, Choice, 2010;

‘Nick Hubble’s chapter on William Empson and Mass Observation … ground[s] his statements about intermodernism’s generic integrity in an interdisciplinary understanding of poetic and documentary form …. His focus on Mass Observation … lay[s] bare a realm of expressive experience which might helpfully be claimed as intermodernism’s especial terrain. This leads to a fascinating discussion, by way of I.A. Richards’s theory of value, of Empson’s criticism and its implications for a proletarian literature, bringing to life issues at stake in the collection as a whole’, Alex Pestell, Textual Practice 24 (5), 2010;

‘Nick Hubble’s absorbing work of historical reconstruction … makes an intriguing case for William Empson’s contribution to the founding of Mass Observation’, Marina MacKay, Journal of British Studies, 50 (1), 2011; 

‘excellent discussions of intermodernist “inbetweenness” include … Nick Hubble’s examination of William Empson’s influence on Mass-Observation and its attempt to imagine Britain “as simultaneously socially heterogeneous and the site of a collective identity”’, Benjamin Kohlmann, Modernist Cultures, 6 (1), 2011; 

‘the work done by William Empson and Charles Madge for Mass Observation …, according to Nick Hubble’s insightful essay, was not only a significant element of both their careers, but also an exemplary intermodern project that recorded rapid social and political transformations in a manner that empowered the masses to represent themselves’ Patrick Bixby, Studies in the Novel, 43 (2), 2011.

 

Publications

Journal Papers

(2012) Hubble, N., John Sommerfield and Mass Observation, The Space Between: literature and culture, 1914-1945 8 (1) : 131- 151

(2011) Hubble, N., Late Intermodernism: B.S. Johnson, Charles Madge and Twentieth-Century Britain, Critical Engagements: A Journal of Criticism and Theory 4 (1&2)

(2011) Hubble, N., '"In the Twentieth Century, and the Heart of Civilisation": The London of the Forsytes' http://www.literarylondon.org/london-journal/march2011/hubble.html, Literary London 9 (1)

(2010) Hubble, N., Mass Observation Online (Review Article)http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/969, Reviews in History969

(2010) Hubble, N., 'The Liminal Persistence of Interwar Suburbs in the Twenty-First Century' http://arts.brunel.ac.uk/gate/entertext/8/pdfs/ET8HubbleED, EnterText 8 (Spring 2010)

(2009) Hubble, N., '"The Freedom of the City": Mansfield and Woolf' http://www.literarylondon.org/london-journal/march2009/hubble.html, Literary London 7 (1)

(2008) Hubble, N., 'Historical Psychology, Utopian Dreams and Other Fool’s Errands' http://www.js-modcult.bham.ac.uk/articles/issue6_hubble.pdf, Modernist Cultures 3 (2) : 192- 207

(2007) Hubble, N., Virtual histories and counterfactual myths: Christopher Priest’s The Separation, Extrapolation 48 (3) : 450- 461 Download publication

(2005) Hubble, N., Five English disaster novels, 1951-1972, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction 95 (3) : 89- 103 Download publication

(2002) Hubble, N., Imagined and imaginary whales: George Orwell, Benedict Anderson and Salman Rushdie, World Literature Written in English 40 (1) : 29- 41 Download publication

(2001) Hubble, N., 'Charles Madge and Mass-Observation are At Home: From Anthropogy to War, and After', New Formations: a journal of culture/theory/politics 44 76- 89

Book Chapters

(2013) Hubble, N., Radical Eccentricity and Post-War Ordinariness. In: Kohlmann, B. ed. Writing of the Struggle: The Works of Edward Upward. Ashgate

(2013) Hubble, N., Naomi Mitchison: Fantasy and Intermodern Utopia. In: Reeve-Tucker, A. and Waddell, N. eds. Utopianism, Modernism and Literature in the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan

(2013) Hubble, N., The Break-Up of Britain. In: Hubble, N., McLeod, J. and Tew, P. eds. The 1970s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction. Bloomsbury Academic

(2012) Hubble, N., Orwell and the English Working Class: Lessons in Autobiografiction for the Twenty-First Century. In: Keeble, RL. ed. Orwell Today. Bury St Edmunds : Abramis 30- 45

(2012) Hubble, N., 'Imagism, Surrealism, Realism: Middlebrow Transformations in the Mass-Observation Movement'. In: Brown, E. and Grover, M. eds. Middlebrow Literary Cultures: The Battle of the Brows, 1920-1960. Palgrave Macmillan 202- 217

(2011) Hubble, N., 'The Fictional Excavation of the Future in Double Vision'. In: Wheeler, P. ed. Re-Reading Pat Barker. Newcastle : Cambridge Scholars Press 113- 130

(2010) Hubble, N., 'The Rise and Fall of the English Review as a Series of Music Hall Acts by Fordie and Wells'. In: Harding, J. ed. Ford Madox Ford and Editing (International Ford Madox Ford Studies 9). Rodopi (9) : 67- 79

(2009) Hubble, N., 'The Intermodern Assumption of the Future: William Empson and Mass-Observation'. In: Bluemel, K. ed. Intermodernism. Edinburgh University Press 171-188-

(2009) Hubble, N., 'Intermodern Pastoral: William Empson and George Orwell'. In: James, D. and Tew, P. eds. New Versions of Pastoral: Post-Romantic, Modern, and Contemporary Responses to the Tradition, Madison, Teaneck. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/ London : Associated University Press 125- 135

(2008) Hubble, N., The origins of intermodernism in Ford Madox Ford's Parallax View. In: Gasiorek, A. and Moore, D. eds. Ford Madox Ford: Literary Networks and Cultural Transitions (International Ford Madox Ford Studies 7). Amsterdam : Amsterdam: Rodopi 165- 188 Download publication

(2007) Hubble, N., 'An Evacuee for Ever: B.S. Johnson versus Ego Psychology'. In: Tew, P. and White, G. eds. Re-Reading B.S. Johnson. Basingstoke and New York : Palgrave Macmillan 143- 157

(2006) Hubble, N., Beyond mimetic Englishness: Ford's English trilogy and The Good Soldier. In: Brown, D. and Plastow, J. eds. Ford Madox Ford and Englishness (International Ford Madox Ford Studies 5). Amsterdam: Rodopi 147- 162 Download publication

(2006) Hubble, N., 'Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy'. In: Tew, P. and Mengham, R. eds. British Fiction Today. London: Continuum 153- 164

(2005) Hubble, N., 'Priest’s Repetitive Strain'. In: Butler, AM. ed. Christopher Priest: The Interaction. Cambridge: Science Fiction Foundation 35- 51

(2003) Hubble, N., 'Franz Borkenau, Sebastian Haffner and George Orwell: Depoliticisation and Cultural Exchange'. In: Timms, E. and Hughes, J. eds. Intellectual Migration and Cultural Transformation. Springer 109- 127

(2003) Hubble, N., Decline of the English Penguin and Other Mass-Observations’. In: Hart, C. ed. Approaches to Englishness: Past, Present and Future. Birmingham : Birmingham: Hart 104- 114

Books

(2013) Hubble, N. and Tew, P., Ageing, Narrative and Identity: New Qualitative Social Research. Palgrave Macmillan

(2011) Bazalgette, L., Holden, J., Tew, P., Hubble, N. and Morrison, J., Coming of age. Demos

(2010) Hubble, N., Mass Observation and Everyday Life: Culture, History, Theory (second edition). Palgrave Macmillan

(2006) Hubble, N., Mass-Observation and Everyday Life: Culture, History, Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan