Newer Researchers in Folklore Day
Date 26 September 2025 10:00 - 16:00
Location The Folklore Centre, Todmorden, 65 Halifax Rd, Todmorden OL14 5BB, UK
The Folklore Society’s Newer Researchers Day is a biennial event welcoming all researchers with a relatively new interest in, or experience of, the study of folklore in its contemporary and historical manifestations. As well as sharing our interests and connecting with others, the day is intended to be a lively and engaging exploration of approaches and methods. including challenges and issues in folklore research.
Experienced researchers from a range of backgrounds will lead informative and interactive sessions covering the material culture of folklore, fieldwork, ethics, and participatory and processual approaches.
The Folklore Society has been hosting the Newer Researchers in Folklore Day since 2014. The event is co-sponsored this year by the University of Hertfordshire, with in-kind support from the University of Sheffield’s Centre for Contemporary Folklore Research, and we are delighted to return to The Folklore Centre 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/event-details/newer-researchers-in-folklore or if you are not able to register online, ring the Centre on 01706 816249.
Workshop leaders:
HOLLY ELSDON is the founder and director of The Folklore Centre, Todmorden, which provides opportunities for participation, entertainment and education through exhibitions, workshops, community events, a lecture series, arts and crafts.
Her workshop will be ‘Folklore in Fifty(ish) Objects’, a participant-led exploration of heritage, material culture and community.
RICHARD JENKINS is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Sheffield. 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).
CATHERINE BANNISTER is a is a visiting researcher at The University of Sheffield in the School of Education. She has worked on various projects connected to children’s play past and present, including international studies into children’s digital play, learning, and wellbeing, and teaches on creative participatory research methods with children and young people. She has a longstanding interest in contemporary passage ritual and her monograph Scouting and Guiding in Britain: The Ritual Socialisation of Young People (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) was shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Award 2023. She is a co-organiser of the Contemporary Folklore Research Centre at TUOS.
Julia and Catherine's session is entitled: 'Everyday Enchantment: Finding Folklore All Around You'.
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
THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD’S CONTEMPORARY FOLKLORE RESEARCH CENTRE builds on a rich history of folklore studies to promote and support research into vernacular traditions and cultural practices. It welcomes members from within and outside the university to its varied programme of events. For further details, visit https://contemporaryfolklore.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/