Dr James Reath
Research Fellow
English and Creative Writing
Dr James Reath is a Wellcome Early-Career Research Fellow (2023-2027) in English Literature based at the Centre for Cultures & Environments of Health (CCEH). He is the author of Anexact Form and Modernist Culture (Edinburgh University Press: 2025), an essay based on the book's first chapter ("History of the Doodle") can be read in Aeon.
His current project, Molecular Dreamworlds, investigates the social and cultural agencies of synthetic materials in the twentieth century, including agrochemicals, psychopharmaceuticals, and transgenic organisms.
He received his AHRC-funded PhD from University College London (UCL) in October 2022. Before this he received a BA in English & History (First) from Queen Mary University of London with one-year studying at the University of Miami and an MA in English Literature (Distinction) from McGill University in Montreal. He has held visiting fellowships at Yale University (funded by the Yale-UCL Collaborative Exchange Program) and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin (funded by AHRC IPS).
Recent essays include "Slapsick Classicism: Chaplin among the Sculptures" (Critical Quarterly); "The Groovy: An Everyday Aesthetic of the Sixties" (Textual Practice); "Curt witty wotty dashes" (Aeon); and "The Black Atlantic at 30" (Verso Blog).