Katharine Briggs Folklore Award 2001: Judges' report

Folklore, Oct, 2002 by Jessica Hemming

The Katharine Briggs Folklore Award for 2001 was announced on 6 November at University College London by outgoing Folklore Society President, Professor W. F. H. Nicolaisen, following a lecture by Dr Margaret Mackay, Director of Archives, School of Scottish Studies, entitled "Folk Religion in a Calvinist Setting: Hungarian Models and Scottish Examples." Despite the formal announcement of the Award in November, it was not actually presented to the winner until the Society's pre-Annual General Meeting Conference on 23 March 2002, as the winning author was unable to be present on the official Katharine Briggs Award evening.

Twenty books were entered for the Award this time, of which only six were shortlisted. All six of these titles were then given ranked positions. Unusually, four books received an "honourable mention"; these will be covered briefly in alphabetical order.

Judy Attfield's Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life (Berg) combines design theory with anthropological analysis to examine modern consumer society's relationship with material objects. The judges described her groundbreaking work as a "fascinating kaleidoscope of articulate approaches to an examination of modernity in a world in which things are planned and made." Play for Today in the Primary School Playground: Life, Learning and Creativity (Open University Press), edited by Julia Bishop and Mavis Curtis, was deemed to be the best book so far produced on the subject of children's play behaviour. The collection includes nine articles of consistently high standard by a range of contributors, preceded by an introduction by Iona Opie and followed by a conclusion by the editors. James Huntley Grayson's monumental Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials (Curzon) was commended for making available to Western readers a body of folk narrative hitherto largely unknown. The judges suggested that it is likely to become "the standard English-language collection." Finally, Joy Hendry's The Orient Strikes Back: A Global View of Cultural Display (Berg) examines the phenomenon of Japanese theme parks that re-create foreign historical cultures, asking whether this might constitute "reverse orientalism." Her discussion was felt to touch on several issues important to folklorists, including authenticity, the boundary between entertainment and education, and non-western post-modernity. The sole runner-up this time was Iain Borden's Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body (Berg), which impressed the judges with its "imaginative and many-faceted treatment" of a highly original topic. An "exciting" and "very well-documented study of a contemporary folk group," this book analyses how skateboarders experience the urban built environment in a way distinctive to their own subculture.

One other book submitted was singled out for special praise by the judges, but was ultimately not included on the shortlist on the grounds that its subject could not justifiably be described as folklore. This was Peter Ackroyd's London: The Biography (Chatto and Windus), an extraordinary and fascinating study of the city's history from its foundation to the present. Although the book had to be ruled out of the competition, the judges were so enthusiastic in commending its many virtues that the convenor wrote a letter of appreciation on their behalf to the publisher.

The winning title, by unanimous agreement, was Adam Fox's Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500-1700 (Clarendon Press), which reveals "a very rich picture of the complexity of early modern culture and the communication between different social strata, between local and national forms, and the interplay between oral and literate culture." The author was praised for his impressive knowledge of both primary and secondary source materials and for his presentation of a "highly detailed survey of popular verbal genres in early modern England," including "popular speech, proverbial wisdom, old wives' tales, nursery lore, local custom, ballads and rumour."

The judges and convenor, as always, extend their thanks to all the authors and publishers who contributed to the success of the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award 2001. It is this continuing support that makes the Award a recognised measure of excellence in folklore studies.

Jessica Hemming, Folklore Society. Katharine Briggs Award Convenor