College position(s)
Director of Studies, Fellow
Subject
English
Professor James Wade
Jane Elizabeth Martin Official Fellow
Degrees, Awards and Prizes
MA, PhD
Research themes
James Wade is a scholar of literature, music, popular culture, and folklore, from the Middle Ages to the present day. His research has featured in print and broadcast media from over 40 countries worldwide, including, in the UK: the Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Metro, Sun, Daily Mail, BBC News, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, and BBC Greatest Hits; and, in the USA: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American, Vice News, and CNN. He has also appeared on radio shows around the world, from Dubai to Perth, Vancouver to Boston, including NPR’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition, BBC World Service, Radio 5 Live, The World, Times Radio, and BBC Sounds, as well as podcasts such as Gone Medieval and What We Did Before. He appeared on the BBC Radio 4 series Ian Hislop’s Oldest Jokes, and on the National Geographic Channel documentary In Search of King Arthur. He is the author of Fairies in Medieval Romance, and the editor of the fifteenth-century English romance Sir Torrent of Portingale. He has also published articles on English literature from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Shakespeare, including several on medieval manuscripts, early print, and on Thomas Malory’s monumental prose romance Le Morte Darthur.
He has written on medieval minstrels and live comedy: https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/bawdy-bard-act-discovered-revealing-fifteenth-century-roots-of-british-comedy
With Seb Falk, on the lost ‘Song of Wade’:
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/song-of-wade-lost-english-legend-decoded
And with Katie L. Walter, on John Gage:
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/henry-viii-dissolution-enforcer-stashed-catholic-manuscript
Responsibilities
Professor Wade is the College’s Vice-Mistress, the Fellow for Postdoctoral Support, and a College Teaching Officer.
He teaches Practical Criticism and Critical Practice across all three years of the undergraduate course. He also teaches the ‘Early Medieval’ paper, the ‘Late Medieval’ paper, and Shakespeare in Part I, and papers on ‘Chaucer’ and the ‘Medieval Supernatural’ in Part II.
Extra links