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Folklore and the Senses

  • 20-22/06/2025
  • University College Cork, College Road, Cork T12 K8AF, Ireland
Image: The Fuller Brooch in the British Museum, a late Anglo-Saxon silver brooch depicting the five senses. For a fuller description, please visit: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1952-0404-1

The Fuller Brooch (British Museum) via Wikimedia Commons

Folklore and the Senses: Hybrid conference of The Folklore Society in collaboration with the Department of Folklore and Ethnology, University College Cork, Ireland

The Folklore Society’s Annual Conference 2025

Friday 20 June to Sunday 22 June 2025

At University College Cork, and Online

We know the world through our senses, but how we sense is inflected by symbolism, tradition and belief—by folklore in other words.  What does folklore tell us about our senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste and, indeed, second sight?

How does folklore treat the instruments through which we sense—our eyes, ears, nose, skin, fingers, mouth, tongue…? What do tastes, smells and other sensory experiences mean in tradition? What happens when we are deprived of our senses, voluntarily or involuntarily? And what does folklore tell us when our senses stop making sense—experiences of things heard but not seen, seen but not heard?  When must we, traditionally, refute the evidence of our senses? And of course what we ‘feel’ can be felt in more ways than one, through the heart for instance. Folklore is communication, but there are many ways to communicate: the kiss, the grip, the sign, the gesture…  Can we talk about visual folklore, olfactory folklore, the touch or savour of folklore?

PROGRAMME

Programme times are Irish Standard Time (IST) which is UTC(GMT)+1hr

Friday 20 June

14:00-14:30     Introduction and Welcome

14:30-15:30     Session 1      A Sense of Nature

Ryan Lash (University College Dublin): The White Cow, the Crooked Mouth, and the Corncrake: Sensing the Other-than-human in Inishbofin Island

Tiernan Gaffney (National Museum of Ireland): The Still Murmur: Bee Folklore and Museum Galleries [Online]

16:00-17:30     Session 2      Proverbial Senses

Fionnuala Carson Williams (Independent Scholar): Walls have Ears: The Role of the Senses in Everyday Proverbs.

Tulika Chandra (Shiv Nadar University, India): Savouring Wisdom: Food, Taste, and Sensory Representations in Hindi Proverbs as Living Folklore in India [Online]

Georgios Tserpes (Hellenic Research Centre, Academy of Athens): Sensory Organs in Modern Greek Proverbial Discourse

18:00-20:00: Reception

Saturday 21 June (parallel sessions)

09:30-11:00     Session 3A      A Feel for Old Media

Catherine Bannister (University of Sheffield), Paul Cowdell (University of Hertfordshire) and Abbi Flint (University of Oxford): ‘Excursions into a twilight world’: Taking a Critical, Creative, and Sensorial Approach to the Reader’s Digest Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain.

Gianna French (Courtauld Institute, London): A Visual Séance: Materializing the Spectral Imagination in Pre-Raphaelite Drawings. [Online]

Anthony Bak Buccitelli (Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg): ‘Fairytale as Fuck’: Anti-Modern Media, Sensory Experience, and the Folkloresque.

09:30-11:00     Session 3B      Death and the Senses

Helen Frisby (University of the West of England): Smelling Death: English Funeral Customs, c.1850-1920.

Simona Kuntarič Zupanc (PhD student, University of Ljubljana): Sensory Experiences of the Dead in Rural North-Eastern Slovenia.

Penny Johnston (Manchester Metropolitan University): ‘Three tastes of salt to ward away the fairies’: Salt and the Senses in the Irish Folk Tradition.

11:00-11:30 Break

11:30-13:00     Session 4A       Embodying the Intangible

Lucija Biličić (Independent Scholar) and Lea Biličić (Independent Scholar): The Museum of Lost Tales: Transforming Slavic Folklore into an Embodied Experience.

Ian Brodie (Cape Breton University): Joy and the Senses in Folklore: Feeling Vernacular Performance.

Cozette Griffin-Kremer (Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique, Brest, France): Bringing Luck, with a Flower in France

11:30-13:00     Session 4B      Food, Taste and Memory

Siobhán Browne (University College Cork): Making Sense of the Research: Research Methodologies and the Senses in an Ethnographic Study

Regina Sexton (University College Cork): The Hungry Grass: An Féar Gorta

Julia Bishop (University of Sheffield): The Good, the Bad, the Picturesque and the Revolting: The Lore and Language of School Dinners as Sensory History

13:00-14:00 Lunch Break

14:00-15:30      Session 5A      Experiencing the Supernatural

Clodagh Doyle (National Museum of Ireland, Turlough Park): In the Blink of an Eye—Vulnerability of Being ‘Overlucked’ by People Possessing the Evil Eye.

Solveiga Šlapikienė (PhD student, Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore): The Sense of a Guardian Angel in Lithuanian Belief Narratives.

Andrea Kitta (East Carolina University): ‘I Just Had a Feeling’—The Senses and Experience in Supernatural Narratives

14:00-15:30     Session 5B      Healing and Revival

Meg Nicholas (American Folklife Center): Crying in the Archive: Connecting Archival Research and Creative Grief Therapy.

Cecily Gilligan (Independent Scholar): Traditional Cures, Intuitive Bonesetters and Colourful Rag Trees.

Amanda Clarke (Independent Scholar): Tobar na Súl: A Site for Sore Eyes: The Gift of Sight at the Holy Wells of Ireland.

15:30-16:00      Break

16:00-17:30     Session 6A      Sensing Ghosts and Spirits

Adam N. Coward (Independent Scholar): ‘Here was a proof of the being of evil spirits to 3 of his senses’: Empirical and Emotional Evidence for Apparitions in the Writings of the Rev. Edmund Jones (1702–1793). [Online]

Fiona O’ Driscoll (PhD student, University College Cork): Otherworldly Sensations: Exploring the Female Spirit ‘Petticoat Loose’ as the Epitome of Human Sensory Experience.

Sarah Covington (City University of New York): The Celestial, Nocturnal Sensorium of War: Night Battles, Folklore and the Senses in History. [Online]

16:00-17:30     Session 6B      A Woman’s Touch, Hair and Smell

Ailbhe Nic Giolla Chomhaill (University of Galway): Sensory Experience in ‘Scéal an Anró’, an Irish and Scottish Wonder Tale Ecotype.

Saeedeh Niktab Etaati (Canadian National Museum of History): Women’s Hair: Outraged Protest and Embodied Solidarity in the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement.

Ciara Joyce (PhD student, Open University): ‘The Precious Air of Romance’: Folkloric, Historical, and Contemporary Views on Vaginal Odour. [Online]

Sunday 22 June (parallel sessions)

09:30-11:00     Session 7A      Music, Metaphor and Emotion

Tiber Falzett (University College Dublin): ‘Leig air falbh i!’ (‘Let it fly!’): Sensing (E)motion in Scottish Gaelic Aesthetics.

Olha Petrovych (Estonian Literary Museum) and Mari Väina (Estonian Literary Museum): Sweetness and Bitterness: Symbolism of Taste in Ukrainian and Estonian Folk Songs.

Ciara Thompson (University College Cork): Traditional Lullabies as House, Hearthkeeper, and Sensorium

09:30-11:00     Session 7B      Seeking the Senses in Collections

Angela Byrne (PhD Student, University College Cork): Sensing the Past: Personal Effects and the Sensory Archive of Asylums and Industrial Schools in Ireland.

Liam Doherty (National Museum of Ireland): The Catalogue, the Poet and the Irish Folklife Collection at the National Museum of Ireland.

Susanne Österlund-Pötzsch (Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland): Movement, Body Memory and the Senses in the Folklore Archive.

11:00-11:30 Break

11:30-13:00     Session 8A      Love and the Senses

Alessandra Curtis (Independent Scholar): Making Sense of Military Folklore,

Emmanouela Katrinaki (Hellenic Folklore Research Centre, Academy of Athens): The Senses of Love in the Folk Distichs of Eastern Crete (1900-c.1950).

Clodagh Tait (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick): ‘More like one that tuck love powders, than a raisonable being’: Potions, Passion and Poison in Ireland, c.1820-1940.

11:30-13:00     Session 8B      A Sense of Self and Extensions of the Self

Aphrodite-Lidia Nounanaki (Hellenic Folklore Research Centre, Academy of Athens): What If Our Senses Are Not Enough? Technology as a Tool to ‘Sharpen Perception’: The Tesla Car Case.

Fionnán Mac Gabhann (University College Cork): Sensing the Self in Contemporary Folklore from Connemara.

Kristiana Willsey (University of Southern California): Ritual and Embodiment in Online Self-Diagnosis Narratives. [Online]

13:00 Conference closes. Lunch for in-person participants

CONFERENCE FEES and REGISTRATION (click here to download the booking form)

Reduced rate fee applies to: conference speakers; Folklore Society members; Folklore of Ireland Society members; students; seniors; unwaged/low income. University of Cork staff and students attending in person: £30 (free online). Student speakers: free

In Person Participation: £160 Standard Rate / £110 Reduced Rate. In-Person fee includes: Refreshments between sessions; Friday evening drinks reception + finger food; Lunch on Saturday and Sunday. Day Rates are also available (see booking form).

DEADLINE: All in-person bookings must be made before 6 June 

Online Participation: £100 Standard Rate / £80 Reduced Rate. Day Rates also available (see booking form).

Online participants can book at any time until 21 June.

ACCOMMODATION: The FLS has arranged with UCC to have a number of rooms available in University Accommodation. These will be self-catering single ensuite rooms (including free parking, wi-fi, bed linen, towels, and welcome tea/coffee pack), at a cost of €80/night (£68.35 at April 8 exchange rate). Payment would need to be made by 19 May 2025. Contact us for further information

You can find out about Cork as a conference destination at https://www.ucc.ie/en/conference/cork/

Cork Folklore Project: Access accounts, memories and stories from the audio archives of the Cork Folklore Project on our Cork Memory Map, Thrift Map and Health Map: https://corkfolklore.org/memory-map/