IMC 2026: Sessions
Session 845: New Perspectives on M. R. James: Scholarship and Creative Practice
Tuesday 7 July 2026, 16:30-18:00
| Organiser: | Charlotte Bowyer, Department of English, King's College London |
|---|---|
| Moderator/Chair: | Jake Frances Ferguson, Department of English, King's College London |
| Paper 845-a | An Education in Reading Horrific Bodies: Reading Old English Soul and Body Poems in the Context of M. R. James' The Mezzotint (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Language and Literature - Old English, Medievalism and Antiquarianism |
| Paper 845-b | M. R. James, The Marvels of the East and a 'Forgotten Fragment' of Jannes and Jambres (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Language and Literature - Old English, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Medievalism and Antiquarianism |
| Abstract | M. R. James is best known for his ghost stories, a collection of over thirty texts written between 1892 and 1935. Recurring themes of cursed manuscripts, desolate churches and untimely bodies in these stories have led to a critical history largely focused on how the past manifests in James’ creative work. However, M. R. James was also a scholar whose engagement with medieval culture produced a broad corpus of studies, catalogues and facsimiles during his academic career. The influence of James' scholarly pursuits on his fiction is apparent, but the inverse is rarely studied. How can his critically-informed, creative body of work serve as a model for rethinking our engagement with the past? This session offers new perspectives on M. R. James’ legacy. Through interdisciplinary papers on archaeology, literary pedagogy and the Gothic, we reposition James as a figure who reaches both forward into modern horror and backwards into medieval studies, troubling the boundaries between academic and creative practice to explore the medieval through a 'Jamesian' lens. |