At the end of February, I travelled up to Glasgow to speak at the English Folk Dance and Song Society’s Broadside Day at the Unviersity of Strathclyde. This is the second in a short series of posts about the day. The first of the afternoon’s talks was given by Peter Shepheard on ‘The Master-piece of…

I’m pleased to say that the first review of Singing the News appeared in the Folk Music Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society at the end of 2018. It was noticeable that the reviewer, David Atkinson, had read the book in detail, and I really appreciate the time he must have taken…

The UCU is currently running a questionnaire on casualisation and precarious contracts in the university sector.  I filled in my return over lunch on the first day.  Although it is meant to be anonymous, I decided that I would share some (although not all) of my responses.  In places these have been edited in order…

One of the pleasures of working at Lancaster has been putting together a new MA module on the early modern world. It is a small group of students who are very interested and engaged. After discussing what makes the early modern early modern (rather than medieval or modern) during our first session, our second seminar…