Welcome to the Centre for Contemporary Legend at Sheffield Hallam University
The city of Sheffield has an international reputation as a centre for folklore and legend scholarship that can be traced back to 1964. The academic study of Contemporary Legends began at the University of Sheffield in the 1982 with a series of conferences and publications in the Perspectives on Contemporary Legend series. We want to build upon these foundations working with friends and partners to reinvigorate folklore and legend studies in the 21st century. We aim to create an institutional base that can act as a focal point for all those working in the field of folklore and legend studies.
Our main areas of interest and research inquiry are:
- Story-telling: revisiting the power of the narrative
- Folklore on screen (TV and film)
- Hauntological media and the ‘folk horror’ revival
- Folklore in print (photography and photographic publication)
- Documenting folklore and traditions: amateur and professional; archivist and artist
- Contemporary Legend collection and research
- Supernatural folklore and extraordinary personal experiences
- Contemporary and historic moral panics
- Archives as a folklore research resource
- Intangible cultural heritage*: engaging with communities to revisit concepts of English identity: individual and communal; local and national.
*UNESCO (2003) 7th general assembly ‘Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage’: https://ich.unesco.org/
Centre for Contemporary Legend 