Dr Peter Mills, Senior Lecturer

Dr Peter Mills

Senior Lecturer

Peter's main areas of research and teaching are Popular Music Studies, Music and the Moving Image, Music and Dissent, Adaptation, Hungarian Musical Culture, Australian Musical Culture. Books on Van Morrison, Samuel Beckett and The Monkees.

Peter's main area research is Popular Music Studies, and this informs his teaching. He run courses entitled Popular Music and the Moving Image and Popular Music and Dissenting Cultures. He also teach interdisciplinary modules on the Media and English degree and this interaction of disciplines is close to his heart.

Peter's degrees (BA(Hons) and PhD) were both in the field of English Literature and his research is characterised by the intersection of Media and Literary Studies, as he says ideas and creativity flow naturally from one field to another.

Peter is currently working on a series of short books on individual songs, a book chapter on the history of live music in Roundhay park in Leeds, and an ambitious project looking to catalogue the history of live concerts at Leeds Beckett University since 1970.

Current Teaching

  • Popular Music and the Moving Image
  • Popular Music, Dissenting Cultures
  • Music and Mediation
  • Theory Text Performance
  • Intertextuality and Adaptation
  • Cinematic identities
  • Understanding Social Media
  • The Art Of Investigation

Research Interests

Peter has published books on Van Morrison, Samuel Beckett and The Monkees. He is involved in the launch of a series of short books which offer 'biographies' of individual songs. He is writing about 'Moon River' for example.

Peter is currently researching the history of live concerts at Leeds Beckett University a project related to the institution's 50th Anniversary and is about to publish a chapter on the story of live music in Leeds's Roundhay Park.

Dr Peter Mills, Senior Lecturer

Ask Me About

  1. Education
  2. Europe
  3. Festivals
  4. Film
  5. Literature
  6. Media
  7. Music
  8. Northernness
  9. Performing Arts
  10. Popular culture
  11. Social Media
  12. Sound
  13. Teaching
  14. Television
  15. Theatre
  16. Travel

Selected Outputs

  • Mills P (2018) "Hit The Road , Jack: Van Morrison and 'On The Road' ". In: Warner S; Sampras J ed. Kerouac on Record: A Literary Soundtrack. London: Bloomsbury,

  • Mills P (2017) Fallen From The Garden: XTC and Thomas Hardy. In: Fisher M ed. The XTC Bumper Book For Boys And Girls. Edinburgh: Limelight,

  • Mills P (2013) Jake Thackray and Cultural Permissions of Northern Englishness. In: Cowgill R; Russell D; Scott D ed. Music and The Idea of The North. Ashgate,

  • Mills P (2017) Blues Run The Game: the story of Jackson C. Frank.

  • Mills P (2013) Gary Shearston [obituary].

  • Mills P (2016) The Monkees, Head, and the 60s. London/ New York: Jawbone Press.

  • Mills P (2012) Media and Popular Music. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

  • Mills P (2010) Hymns to the Silence: Inside the Work of Van Morrison. New York: Continuum.

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