Paul Cowdell

A beautiful sea mist is rolling up the street. This is my favourite thing about living here, and it makes me so happy.

Stupendous staring

Call for Papers: Performing Evil, The Mediation and Display of Diabolic Spectres, 1700-2000 (4/5 June 2026, Leuven). This conference explores the tangled histories of supernatural, diabolic evil and all kinds of spectral apparitions in the last three centuries. Specifically, it is interested in how and why ghosts, spirits and related apparitional phenomena were framed as diabolic, demonic or malign manifestations from the afterlife. This conference is an initiative of Fabula Velata, a growing international and interdisciplinary research network for the historical study of occult performance. We hope to foster new connections between scholars working across history, performance studies, religious studies, media studies and related fields. Send abstracts (c.250 words) and bios (c.100 words) to kristof.smeyers@kuleuven.be before 21 March 2026. Please do get in touch if you have any questions.

Just seen this ace CfP from the excellent @kristofsmeyers.bsky.social. Slightly regretting that I'm already booked at a conference at the same time.

The 'new antiquarian' label may actually be helpful in pointing to those problems, but only if it is applied critically. Otherwise it just contributes to complicity perpetuating them.

The question for folklorists is how to accommodate/incorporate this turn of interest while also working to inform it of current work and not lose our own development in it. That's essentially a reflexivity issue. (3/3)

I've had to spend a long time explaining to US colleagues (especially) about the antiquarian cast of some popular takes on folklore. These takes, sometimes deliberately, are theoretically regressive. The antiquarianism isn't just artefactual, it's (disciplinary) historiographical. (2/3)

The popularity of “new antiquarianism” challenges how we understand research impact - LSE Impact Research in the humanities is not confined to academic institutions. Particularly in history & archaeology where "new antiquarianism" creates public research.

As a folklorist (in England particularly), the 'new antiquarianism' question resonates. Some of the defensive reactions (that's public archaeology! that's snobbish!) have seemed unreflexive, when (for folklorists) the unreflexivity of the antiquarian turn is itself a complicated matter. (1/3)

It also makes up for finding myself /not/ cited in articles where I probably should be (grumble grumble)

I think Queer Gothic is perhaps a locus of resistance

Oh, that may also have happened on occasion. I'm a generally optimistic sort of chap, so wry amusement may not be as properly cheering but it does also work.

It was certainly welcome after getting a targeted flier inviting me to see Nigel Falange at the IoW's Junior Nuremberg event.

Finding (accidentally) that I have been cited in a chapter on 'Queer Displacement in American Folk Horror' has proper cheered me up.

Buy tickets – Tis Tales Presents: World's Weirdest Folktales – Ventnor Library Tis Tales Presents: World's Weirdest Folktales – Ventnor Library, Sat 14 Mar 2026 - Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the weirdest of them all? Once upon a time there were three storytellers who never...

#IsleofWight #storytelling alert - this one looks a lot of fun, three terrific local storytellers www.tickettailor.com/events/merlf...

Headline: Isle of Wight man who stabbed ex's washing machine jailed

Sometimes it's better not to find out more.

Edward Gibbon for the elegant scholarly complaint: ‘… in a prolix work … he has omitted everything that posterity desires to learn. I have tediously acquired, by a painful perusal, the right of pronouncing this unfavourable sentence’.

This issue also includes my review of @odavies9.bsky.social and @cerihoulbrook.bsky.social's Folklore: A Journey through the Past and the Present

Made myself a cup of herbal tea. I think I put the teabag in the food recycling bin - the bin's open, bag's not in the cup - but I just can't see where it went. I licked my finger to see if it tasted of teabag. All it proved was that I'd been using Pritt. That teabag could be anywhere...

This makes me so happy. Hearing John Henderson on other scholars was one of the great delights of my undergrad experience.

I'm so sorry. Sending love

Followed today by Japanese food while Chinatown's New Year street festivities drummed their way past. Most satisfactory trip!

Cast picture of ENO production of Brecht/Weill's The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, pic © Tristram Kenton

Just back from a late birthday treat. Full-on Bert and Kurt magnificence from the ENO at the Coliseum. (Pic by Tristram Kenton)

There is still time to sign up for the free webinar with @unembarrassable.bsky.social on Wednesday 25 February!
buytickets.at/wellcomeanti...
Time: 12-13:30 GMT
Proudly by and for disabled people. A Wellcome Anti-ableist Research Culture event, supported by the @wellcometrust.bsky.social

A friend asked 'Is this a rage bait website?' Partner said 'It's a rage bait island'

Only a week left to catch our Winter Sale, with 30% off across our backlist until February 28th...

Including Lost Envoy: The Tarot Deck Of Austin Osman Spare.

See what else is on offer 🔗 strangeattractor.greedbag.com/dept/~winter...

A friend and I have been talking regrets at books not bought. I hadn't seen myself as bibliomanic, but the exchange exposed some unhealthy truths. (I still rue a Thucydides I didn't buy at 17). Her summary is spot on:

We are the folk whose unbought books will forever whisper to us "Never let me go"

Screenshot: 'New dates for documentory [sic] film nights'

Aaaah, dear god, I've just tried to navigate my way round their dysfunctional website. It doesn't work, the notion of navigable links seems a step too far for them, and the content is a Tim Messenger tribute board.

Screenshot: 'Tackle the fear of the black page'

Comms is a problem for small local arts venues, I get that. One in particular here fares spectacularly badly, in part because of its refusal to recognise that copy might need checking. That said, finding this on a post for a writing bootcamp carried even more dread than seemed intended

🤣👏 I dress nice, don't I lady? Quick, an' all...

Indian 1 rupee stamp (1974) commemorating Friedrich Max Müller

Today's webinar is on the Victorian folklorists. Yet again, I will have to resist the temptation to shout 'Müller's the name, lady, there'll never be another'. Only one person has ever laughed