2007 - 2020

A Fieldworker’s Vision | The Ritual Year Conference

‘A Fieldworker’s Vision: Researching the Present’

Folklore, Ethnology, and Ethnomusicology Conference Aberdeen
Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, Scotland
Co-sponsored by the Folklore Society
1–3 July 2016

• FEECA 2016 Conference Programme

The FEECA 2016 Leaflet shows the schedule for the weekend.

FEECA aims to bring together graduate, postgraduate students, and early-career researchers in these fields to strengthen relations between relevant scholars and institutions in the UK and around the world.

This year’s theme draws on W. F. H. Nicolaisen’s article, ‘A Gleaner’s Vision’ (Folklore, 106, 1995) in which Nicolaisen (1927–2016, Emeritus Professor, Elphinstone Institute) takes issue with the limited vision and approach of the early scholars of Folklore, where the work of the folklorist/ethnologist was seen to be one of salvage, gathering up scattered remnants of the past. Nicolaisen argues for a broader vision, a more comprehensive approach aimed at the present, encouraging folklorists to seek out what surrounds them.

The keynote lecture will be given by Dr Jonathan Roper, Senior Research Fellow in English and Comparative Folklore at the University of Tartu, Estonia, with other papers covering a wide-range of topics representing contemporary research from Australia, India, Russia, Croatia, the USA, Canada, Finland, Sri Lanka, and Italy, as well as the UK and Ireland.

Keynote Lecture

5:30PM, FRIDAY, 1 JULY, 2016

Sir Duncan Rice Library, 7^th Floor, Conference Room 1

Addressivity and Folklore

Dr Jonathan Roper

University of Tartu, Estonia

'Do there exist genres without an addressee?’ Baxtin (Bakhtin) asked himself in his ’Notes of 1970/71'. Whatever the answer might be for literary texts, for folklore texts the answer is surely ‘no'. Tales, songs, charms, proverbs and riddles all have their own forms and norms of addressivity. This keynote aims at highlighting the addressivity of folklore texts, and how we might better imagine and understand folklore by bearing its addressees in mind.

Biography:

Dr Jonathan Roper is Senior Research Fellow in English and Comparative Folklore at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He earned his PhD in 2003 from the University of Sheffield with his thesis English Verbal Charms. He chairs the International Society for Folk Narrative Research committee on Charms, Charmers and Charming, serves on the Editorial Board of Commentationes Archivi Traditionum Popularium Estoniae, and is an associate member of the Folklore Fellows.

Dr Roper’s academic research to date has mainly focused on traditional linguistic genres such as verbal charms and riddles. His interest encompasses both texts and practice, i.e. charms and charming, riddles and riddling, as well as the people involved, the charmers and the charmed, the riddlers and the riddlees. Dr Roper also researches the historical and present-day dialects and folklore of southern England and eastern Canada (Newfoundland, Labrador, the lower North Shore of Quebec). He has produced three films: one on mumming, another on fortune-telling, with the most recent being a portrait of a traditional singer.

Download the CFP for FEECA 2016 here (submission deadline 31 January 2016).

The Ritual Year Conference 2016: Findhorn, Scotland, 8-12 January 2016

The 12th annual conference of the SIEF Working Group on the Ritual Year, hosted by the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, will be held at Findhorn, on the shores of the Moray Firth in northern Scotland.

The centrepiece of the conference will be a visit to the Burning of the Clavie, an ancient New Year fire festival in the neighbouring village of Burghead, held each year on 11 January, Aul Eel (Old Yule) according to the Julian calendar.

2015 | 2014 | 2007

2015

Free-Reed Convention Study Day

6 November 2015

Sponsored by the British Forum for Ethnomusicology, this study day was part of the Button Boxes and Moothies Festival, and explored the role and function of free-reed instruments in musical traditions throughout the world.

2014

'Steppin Steens o Knowledge': Folklore, Ethnology, and Ethnomusicology Conference, Aberdeen (FEECA)

4–6 July 2014

FEECA was organized to answer the need for an academic forum for postgraduate research students and early-career researchers and to strengthen relations between relevant scholars and institutions in the UK and elsewhere.

‘Steppin Steens o Knowledge’ (Stepping Stones of Knowledge) refers to a life philosophy of the late Stanley Robertson, a Traveller and former research associate at the Elphinstone Institute. Drawn from the incremental nature of Stanley’s ballad and storytelling traditions, the concept encapsulates both the initial career steps being taken by conference-goers, as well as the new ‘steppin steens’ being created through each participant’s research.

The conference was a great success, demonstrating that strong research in Folklore, Ethnology, and Ethnomusicology is being conducted around the world. Indeed, the conference attracted delegates from Europe, Australia, North America, and South Asia.

See the conference programme here.

The conference was made possible thanks to the generous support of the University of Aberdeen Development Trust, the School of Education, and the Friends of the Elphinstone Institute.

2007

The International Ballad Conference of the Kommission fur Volksdichtung

29 August–3 September 2007

The conference was themed around 'Songs of People on the Move', a productive idea that led to some fascinating explorations of the world of singers and their songs. Selected refereed papers have been published as Songs of People on the Move edited by Thomas A. McKean. The conference was held at The Balmacara Hotel, Balmacara, Lochalsh, Scotland. We featured four days of papers and an excursion through north Skye, as well as singing sessions and concerts.