The Katharine Briggs Award 2023
We are delighted to announce that the winner of The Katharine Briggs Award 2023 is Una McIlvenna for her book Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe, 1500-1900 published by Oxford University Press Congratulations Una! Una was unable to join us from Melbourne for the award presentation on 7 November, so she has...
William Francis Ryan (1937-2023)
We were very sad to hear of the death on 2 November of Prof. Will Ryan, scholar of Russian history and culture, and author of The Bath House at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia (1999). He was President of The Folklore Society from 2005 to 2008, was our Honorary Librarian...
It’s that time of year again! We’d like to see your neeps, pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, Hop-tu-naa lanterns Tag @FolkloreSociety on Insta or X(ex-Twitter) in your lantern photo or post your photo on our Facebook page
Digitising Doc Rowe: Crowdfunder and New Film about his Work
Doc Rowe film and archive project Fifth Column Films in Whitby have launched a Crowdfunder campaign to digitise and save some of Doc Rowe’s unique archive of recordings of UK seasonal events. The campaign will run until 17 November 2023 and aims to raise £25,000 to digitise his video and film material: This project has...
Folk Dance: Grappling with Tradition conference
Folk Dance: Grappling with Tradition Conference of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, English Folk Dance and Song Society Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 November 2023 The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library’s 2023 conference examines folk dance in its wide ranging forms, and asks speakers and delegates to consider the meaning of tradition, both historically and in the...
RAI Research Seminar on Alfred Cort Haddon
Ciarán Walsh will be launching his book Alfred Cort Haddon: a Very English Savage at The Royal Anthropological Institute’s Research Seminar on Tuesday 31 October 2023, 16:00-18:00, at 50 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 5BT. Tickets are free: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rai-research-seminar-and-book-launch-ciaran-walsh-tickets-724064254677 Haddon adopted the persona of ‘a very English savage’ in January 1895 during a slideshow on the meaning...
The Katharine Briggs Award 2023: Short List
We are very pleased to announce the short list for this year’s Katharine Briggs Award Short List (in alphabetical order) Catherine Bannister, Scouting and Guiding in Britain: The Ritual Socialisation of Young People (Palgrave Macmillan) Marion Gibson, The Witches of St Osyth: Persecution, Betrayal and Murder in Elizabethan England (Cambridge University Press) Michael Heaney, The Ancient English Morris...
Healthy Folk: new fully funded PhD: Applications now open
Healthy Folk – The role of vernacular knowledge in health-related decision-making Applications are invited for an Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award at The Open University, in partnership with The Folklore Society. This fully-funded studentship is available from October 2024. Further details about the value of an Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP award are available on the...