Alex Niven

Alex Niven
Born	(1984-02-18) 18 February 1984 (age 40) Hexham
Known for	Everything Everything
Academic background
Education	Queen Elizabeth High School, Hexham
Alma mater	University of Bristol (BA) University of Oxford (MSt, DPhil)
Thesis	Basil Bunting's late modernism : from Pound to poetic community (2013)
Doctoral advisor	Ron Bush[1]
Academic work
Discipline	English literature
Sub-discipline	Modernist poetry
Institutions	Newcastle University
Website	www.ncl.ac.uk/elll/people/profile/alexniven.html

Alex Niven (born 18 February 1984, Hexham, Northumberland) is an English writer, poet, editor, academic and musician.^[2] As of 2024^[update] he is a lecturer in English literature at Newcastle University^[3] and an editor at Repeater Books.^[4][5][6]

Alex Niven was born in Hexham, Northumberland and educated at Queen Elizabeth High School, Hexham.^[7] He studied at the University of Bristol (BA)^[3] and University of Oxford where he was awarded a Master of Studies (MSt) degree followed by a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2013 with a thesis on modernist poetry, Basil Bunting and Ezra Pound supervised by Ron Bush.^[1]

In 2006, Niven was a founding member of the indie art rock band Everything Everything, with friends from Queen Elizabeth High School and played guitar with the band between 2007 and 2009.^[8] In 2009, he left the band to study for a doctorate^[9] at St John's College, Oxford and to pursue a writing career.^{[citation needed]}

Formerly^[when?] assistant editor at New Left Review^[10] and editor-in-chief at The Oxonian Review, Niven wrote for The Guardian, The Independent, openDemocracy, Agenda, The Cambridge Quarterly, ELH, Oxford Poetry, Notes and Queries, The Quietus, several blogs, including his own The Fantastic Hope.^[11]

In 2011, Niven's first work of criticism, Folk Opposition, was published by Zero Books.^[12] The book attempted to reclaim a variety of folk culture motifs for the political left, and excoriated the "Green Tory" zeitgeist that had accompanied the ascendancy of David Cameron's Conservative Party in Britain in 2009-10. Writing in the journal of the Institute for Public Policy Research, Niki Seth-Smith described it as a "rebuttal to ... knee jerk reactions [about folk culture] by way of careful historicisation and incisive cultural analysis",^[13] while Joe Kennedy of The Quietus described it as "one of 2011's most incisive polemics".^[14]

In 2014, his second book, a study of the Oasis album Definitely Maybe, was published in Bloomsbury Publishing's 33⅓ series.^[15] TLS, The Times Literary Supplement praised its "convincing modulation between a discussion of the post-Thatcher north-west England that informed Oasis's early lyrics, and the finer points of pentatonic and mixolydian melody governing Noel Gallagher's early songwriting".^[16] Los Angeles Review of Books reviewer Rhian E. Jones judged the book a success, concluding that "Niven displays a thorough appreciation of what made Oasis good while remaining aware of their shortcomings".^[17]

In 2014, his first collection of poetry, The Last Tape, was published, and his poem "The Beehive" provided the epigraph to Owen Hatherley's 2012 architecture survey A New Kind of Bleak.^[18]

In 2019, his third book was published: New Model Island: How to Build a Radical Culture beyond the idea of England.^[19]

In 2023, his book on Northern England was published and reviewed by Andy Burnham as a "great book".^[7]