call for papers: THE EUROPEAN FOLK REVIVAL

[A Smith]

CALL FOR PAPERS: 
Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, University of Sheffield
in association with 
the Departments of History, Germanic Studies and English Literature 
and the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition
International Interdisciplinary Conference
Friday 7 - Sunday 9 September 2007
 
"THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE: 
THE EUROPEAN FOLK REVIVAL, 
1760-1914"
 
Convenors: Timothy Baycroft, Joan Beal, Matthew Campbell, Hamish 
Mathison, Michael Perraudin, Marcus Waithe

The rediscovery and revalidation of the 'culture of the people' was a 
defining feature of artistic and intellectual life in the societies of 
nineteenth- and late eighteenth-century Europe, and it underpinned 
many of the key ideological tendencies of the times. Romantics and 
pre-Romantics articulated their sense of the inadequacy of 
cosmopolitan rationalism by espousing the cultural productions of 
ordinary (uneducated, rural) people as repositories of pre-rational 
truth and authentic experience. The nostalgic imitation, collection and 
study of folksong, folktale, folk custom and folk belief which this 
engendered became a process of linguistic, historical and mythical 
identity-formation with powerful political consequences; and the new 
nationalism which increasingly destabilised the European political 
order over the course of the nineteenth century gained its legitimacy 
from such activity. At the same time, radical movements from the late 
eighteenth century onwards found sustenance in evidence of the 
cultural autonomy and superiority of ordinary people, in customs and 
festivals, songs and story-telling. Nineteenth-century socialism did not 
seek to root itself in resuscitated systems of myth, but its 
mythologisation of the proletariat had a related intellectual impetus. 
The European nineteenth century, it can be said, was the age of the 
people and peoples, of masses and nations; and the cultural 
expression of this identity was the folk revival.

The proposed conference aims to encompass the span of the 
European folk revival from its beginnings in the middle of the 
eighteenth century to its cataclysm, the war of the peoples, World War 
One. The revival's British emergence from 1760 in works such as 
Macpherson's Ossian or Percy's Reliques will be traced. Its reception 
and philosophical development in Germany by J.G. Herder and its 
further elaboration by British, German and French Romanticism 
(Wordsworth and Coleridge, Renan and Arnold, Novalis and the 
Schlegels, Arnim, Brentano and the Grimms) will be examined. The 
folkloristic or popular-cultural dimensions both of nineteenth-century 
socialist utopias - Saint-Simon, Marx, William Morris - and of the 
diverse national movements of nineteenth century Europe, from 
Ireland to Italy, Belgium to Bulgaria and beyond, will be observed. 
Offerings from all relevant branches of political, social, cultural, 
linguistic and literary history are encouraged. Analyses of modern re- 
revivals would also be of interest. The main language of the 
conference will be English, but papers can also be delivered and 
discussed in German and French.
 
Possible topics for papers include:

Macpherson, Percy, Herder and their descendants
Nationalism, regionalism, cosmopolitanism
Celt and Teuton, Latin and Slav
Socialism and folk nostalgia
Democracy and demagoguery
Gender, nation and folk
Translation, renovation and forgery
The language of the folk
Mythologies old and new
Folktale and fairy-tale
Epic poetry and folk lyric
Hybridity, authenticity and synthetic form
Ballad, performance and print
Folklore and education
Fine art, folk art
Music and folk-song
Historians, poets, collectors, editors, theorists 
of the Folk Revival	
 
Papers will be 30 minutes long. To apply to deliver a paper at the 
conference, please send by email an abstract of a few lines plus a 
brief c.v.  to one of the convenors (t.baycroft@ j.c.beal@ 
m.campbell@ h.mathison@ m.perraudin@ m.j.waithe@ 
sheffield.ac.uk) AND simultaneously to the conference email account 
(folkrevival at sheffield.ac.uk).

Deadline for submission: December 1st 2006
Preliminary expressions of interest would be welcome
Conference web address: www.c19.group.shef.ac.uk/folkrevival.html


Prof Michael Perraudin
Department of Germanic Studies
Director, Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies
University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, GB

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