Lore and Lunch
Lore and Lunch is an online monthly reading and discussion group led by members of the Contemporary Folklore Research Centre. Everyone is welcome: You don't have to be a centre member, no formal qualifications or academic background is needed - just an open attitude and interest in folklore studies. Attendance is flexible: come to as many or as few sessions as you like, depending on what suits you, or which topics interest you most. Don't worry if you haven't had time to read everything in detail, you are still welcome to join the discussion. Here is a link to the sign up sheet!
Our next meeting online is on Thursday 19th December when we'll be discussing the article:
Ebenezersdóttir, E.Þ. and Stekkjastaur (2024) ‘Our Own Way of Walking: Reflecting Physical Difference in Icelandic Yule Tradition’, in P. Greenhill and J. Orme (eds.) Just Wonder: Shifting Perspectives in Tradition. Utah State University Press.
The book is available as a digital copy in the University Library (and looks fascinating!)
2024 - Semester 2 Readings
22 February 2024: Week 1 - Visual ethnographies
Radice, M. (2023) Happy Yardi Gras! Playing with Carnival in New Orleans during the COVID-19 Pandemic. In, A. Beresin and J. Bishop (eds.) Play in a Covid Frame: Everyday Pandemic Creativity in a Time of Isolation. Open Book Publishers.
28 March 2024: Week 2 - What does it mean to 'fail' at fieldwork?
Lawrence, D. T. (2022) When We Blew It: Vulnerability, Trying, and Failure in Ethnographic Fieldwork. Journal of Folklore Research, 59 (2), 129-147.
21 May 2024: Week 3 - Community perspectives and biographical ethnography
Reith, S. (2008) Through the 'Eye of the Skull': Memory and Tradition in a Travelling Landscape. Cultural Analysis, 7, 77-106.
27 June 2024: Week 4 - Re-imagining and asserting identity through folk tradition
Podcast: Zakia Sewell (2020) My Albion: Episode 1, The Cuckoo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pffx
2024 - Semester 1 Readings
12 October 2023: Week 1 - The idea of 'community' in Folklore
Feintuch, B. (2001). Longing for Community. Western Folklore, 60 (2/3), 149 - 161.
23 November 2023: Week 2 - The concept of 'ostension' in Contemporary Legend research
Peck, A. (2015). At the Modems of Madness: The Slender Man, Ostension and the Digital Age. Contemporary Legend, 5, 14-37.
14 December 2023: Week 3 - Folklore and its relation to other disciplines
Paphitis, T. (2019) Folklore and Public Archaeology in the UK. Public Archaeology, 18 (3), 139-161.
23 January 2024: Week 4 - What can Folklore bring to understanding contemporary issues?
Goldstein, D. (2015) Vernacular Turns: Narrative, Local Knowledge, and the Changed Context of Folklore. Journal of American Folklore, 128 (508), 125-145.
2023 - Semester 2 Readings
9 March 2023: Week 1 - Introducing Folklore as a subject for study.
Houlbrook, C. (2014). The Mutability of Meaning: Contextualizing the Cumbrian Coin-Tree. Folklore, 125(1), 40–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43297732
5 April 2023: Week 2 - Looking at how folklore is understood and represented as a discipline, what it might mean to be a folklorist or to ‘take folklore seriously’.
Kitta, Andrea, Lynne S. McNeill, and Trevor J. Blank (2021) " Talking Folklore: Getting Others to Take the Discipline Seriously while Remaining a Serious Folklorist." Advancing Folkloristics, p. 202. (available online via library)
4 May 2023: Week 3 - Folklore and Calendar Custom and Ritual in the modern west
Bannister, Catherine. 2022) "Making a Modern May Queen: Guiding and the Gendering of Identity." In Scouting and Guiding in Britain: The Ritual Socialisation of Young People, pp. 107-127. Cham: Springer International Publishing. (available online via library)
1 June 2023: Week 4 - Tradition as a key concept in folklore - continuity and change…
Bronner, Simon J. (2000) “The Meanings of Tradition: An Introduction.” Western Folklore, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 87–104. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1500154.