The Katharine Briggs Lecture and Book Award 2024

Dr Doc Rowe, ‘Transmission, Transformation and Trends: Historic and Contemporary Approaches to our Cultural Traditions’  

Tuesday 12 Nov 2024, 6:00pm – 10:00pm 

Cecil Sharp House, London 

This year’s Katharine Briggs Lecture will be given by the legendary folklore collector Doc Rowe. Doc has been photographing and recording seasonal events across the UK for 60 years, including Padstow May Day, the Whittlesey Straw Bear and the Queensferry Burryman (at which he has the honour of being the official dresser of the Burryman, placing the first burr patch). In this time, Doc has amassed an invaluable archive of notes, photographs, audio recordings and video tapes. In 2023, crowdfunding by Fifth Column Films to digitise some of Doc’s video footage for a documentary about his work surpassed its goal, and Doc’s entire collection of moving image material has now been digitised thanks to the money raised. This represents only a small percentage of the archive, however, with photographic material and thousands of hours of audio as yet undigitised.  

Doc was awarded The English Folk Dance and Song Society’s Gold Badge in 2006 and the following year, 2007, he was awarded The Folklore Society’s Coote Lake Medal. He is a member of The Folklore Society’s Council. In this illustrated lecture, Doc will share some of his photographs and film clips from six decades of documenting seasonal events, song and dance performances. 

The Folklore Society’s annual Katharine Briggs Lecture is jointly hosted this year by The Folklore Society and The English Folk Dance and Song Society.  

After the lecture, the winner of this year’s Katharine Briggs Award for recent books on folklore studies will be announced, and all the books entered for the award will be on display. There will also be a special presentation to Professor Ronald Hutton; there will be music; there will be snacks and drinks; and we will raise a toast to Doc Rowe for his imminent 80th birthday. 

Tickets are £6, or £4 for Folklore Society Members with the discount code. Free Personal Assistant ticket with purchase of Access ticket. 

Book your ticket at https://www.efdss.org/whats-on/61-conferences/14065-katharine-briggs-2024