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Henry Glassie and Doc Rowe in Conversation

  • 06/07/2021
  • 18:00-19:30
  • Online talk

Following a recent documentary film portrait of the celebrated American folklorist and ethnologist Henry Glassie, ‘Henry Glassie: Field Work’, the Folklore Society are pleased to host a conversation with Henry himself and Doc Rowe, himself a dedicated field worker in folklore and tradition in the UK.

We will host this event via Zoom and there will be an opportunity for questions from attendees.

Booking via Eventbrite, sales open 15th June
Tickets £5.00 (Folklore Society members £3.00 with Promo code)

The full film by Irish film-maker Pat Collins is available to watch in its entirety [105 minutes] via this link

This immersive and meditative film, set among the rituals and rhythms of working artists in Brazil, Turkey, North Carolina and Ireland, demonstrates Glassie’s focus on folklore and art but reveals a deep abiding love for the people who create. ‘I don’t study people,’ Glassie says, ‘I stand with people and I study the things they create.’  The  film was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019 and received the Best Irish Documentary award at the 2020 Galway Film Fleadh.

About Henry Glassie

Henry Glassie, College Professor Emeritus at Indiana University, has received many awards for his work, including the Chicago Folklore Prize, the Haney Prize in the Social Sciences, the Cummings Award of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, the Kniffen and Douglas awards of the Pioneer America Society, the Nigerian Studies Association Book Prize, and formal recognition for his contributions from the ministries of culture of Turkey and Bangladesh. Three of his works have been named among the notable books of the year by The New York Times.

In 2010, he received the American Folklore Society’s award for a lifetime of scholarly achievement. Additionally in 201, he was awarded the prestigious Charles Homer Haskins Prize of the American Council of Learned Societies; honouring a “scholarly career of distinctive importance,” – and the first folklorist to be so honoured.

Glassie has lectured through United States and Canada, and in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Malta, Turkey, Israel, Kuwait, India, Bangladesh, China, and Japan.

He is the author of Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States, Folk Housing in Middle Virginia, All Silver and No Brass, Irish Folk History, Passing the Time in Ballymenone, Irish Folktales, The Spirit of Folk Art, Turkish Traditional Art Today, Art and Life in Bangladesh, Material Culture, The Potter’s Art, Vernacular Architecture, The Stars of Ballymenone, Prince Twins Seven-Seven: His Art, His Life in Nigeria, His Exile in America, and Daniel Johnston: A Portrait of the Artist as a Potter in North Carolina. He is also the co-author of Ola Belle Reed and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason-Dixon Line and Sacred Art: Catholic Saints and Candomblé Gods in Modern Brazil.

About Doc Rowe

Since the early 1960s, Doc Rowe has been documenting folklore, song, dance and cultural traditions  and has amassed an archive of material on both past and contemporary popular culture in Britain. Often serially documenting annual events, the collection contains a wide variety of media. A visit to Padstow May Day in 1963 was the real inspiration behind this and another major encouragement stems from working with Charles Parker in BBC Radio documentary in the early sixties and in later theatre productions which created a strong commitment in the use of modern media.

Currently housed in Whitby, the collection contains thousands of hours of audio and video recordings; photographs and transparencies; written and printed material; field notes; correspondence; artefacts; posters and cuttings. Additionally, a vast amount of cuttings and ephemera from the early 20th century features aspects of domestic, political and mass entertainment.

A long-term Council member of the Folklore Society and Oral History Society, Doc has also worked extensively in teaching, lecturing and broadcasting on aspects of folklore and tradition. In 2002, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music from University of Sheffield for his research work into vernacular culture and traditional music; in 2005, he received the EFDSS Gold Badge for his outstanding contribution to the folk arts and, in 2007 The Folklore Society presented him with their prestigious Coote Lake Medal for his research work.

As well as a number of one-man exhibitions, he joined artists Alan Kane and Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller in a British Council travelling exhibition ‘Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK’ [2005 and still touring internationally]; contributed to ‘British Folk Art’ [Tate Britain, 2014] and in 2018, ‘Lore – the Living Archive’ is Arts Council funded travelling exhibition that curated material from the archive alongside contemporary artists who drew inspiration for their work from the archive itself.

Website: www.docrowe.org.uk