Newer Researchers in Folklore Day

The Newer Researchers Day brings together researchers from all disciplines with an interest in folklore practice and study. It is a workshop intended to celebrate, share, and develop skills in the innovative ways in which many researchers are approaching contemporary living tradition.

Experts will run informative and interactive sessions on material culture of folklore, fieldwork, ethics, and more. Wishing to promote the development of a new generation of scholars, The Folklore Society has been hosting the biennial Newer Researchers in Folklore Day since 2014. This year the co-sponsors are the University of Hertfordshire, and we are delighted to return to the Centre for Folklore in Todmorden where the 2023 event was held.

The event is free to attend, and vegetarian lunch will be provided.

If you would like to join us, please REGISTER on the Centre for Folklore website https://www.folkloremythmagic.com/or if you are not able to register online, ring the Centre on 01706 816249.

This event is supported by The Folklore Society and The University of Hertfordshire.

Workshop leaders:

HOLLY ELSDON is the founder and director of The Centre for Folklore, which provides opportunities for participation, entertainment and education through landscape, storytelling, art, dance, and craft.
Her workshop will be ‘Folklore in Fifty(ish) Objects’, a participant-led exploration of heritage, material culture and community.

RICHARD JENKINS is an author and anthropologist. His work covers the transition to adulthood, ethnicity and racism, nationalism, the social lives of people with learning difficulties, and modern supernatural and witchcraft beliefs, and his books include Black Magic and Bogeymen: Fear, Rumour and Popular Belief in the North of Ireland 1972–74 (Cork University Press, 2014), winner of The Folklore Society’s annual Katharine Briggs Award in 2015.
He will lead a session on the ethics of folklore collection and scholarship.

JULIA BISHOP is a folklorist with particular interest in children’s folklore and traditional song and music. She is currently a research associate in the School of Education, University of Sheffield, where she is co-director of the Childhoods and Play: Iona and Peter Opie Archive project, and has been involved in many projects related to children’s play and expressive culture, from historical and contemporary perspectives. Her latest publication is Playing the Archive: From the Opies to the Digital Playground, ed. Andrew Burn, John Potter, Kate Cowan & Julia Bishop (UCL Press, 2025).
Her workshop will focus on ‘What makes Folklore Folklore?’

DOC ROWE
is a folklorist, author and film-maker. His archive of folk events, oral history, vernacular music and traditions is at https://www.docrowe.org.uk/about/index.html, and a more recent online resource is https://www.echoesofpadstow.org.uk/, documenting more than 60 years of Padstow’s May Day celebrations and the people of the town. Doc has been called ‘Britain’s greatest folklorist’ (Guardian, 2018), although he would probably rather we didn’t mention that.
He will discuss participation in and recording of folk and community traditions.

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THE FOLKLORE SOCIETY, founded in 1878, is dedicated to the study of traditional and vernacular culture in all its forms, historic and contemporary. To find out more, or to join the Society, visit the website https://folklore-society.com/

THE UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE offers the only MA in Folklore Studies in England, a course that explores legend, ritual, belief and tradition in British Society. For more information, visit https://www.herts.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate-masters/ma-folklore-studies

Image: Rochester Sweeps Festival, May 2025, photo by Jeremy Harte