Episode 1. The Transformative Potential of the English Folk Revival

SYNOPSIS

The interview covers Katie Palmer Heathman’s childhood introduction to the male tradition of Morris in a Somerset side, her own participation as a dancer and the country-wide intergenerational friendships within the folk community. It follows her undergraduate degree and dancing, and postgraduate study culminating in her thesis: Revival: the transformative potential of English folksong and dance, 1890-1940. It argues that the revival was driven by individuals committed to positive social change, who made use of both the cultural material of the folk revival and its attendant concepts of tradition, heritage, and national identity in their endeavours to effect change through the fostering of community and communality.  The thesis (and the interview) focus upon two of these revivalists, Charles Marson and Conrad Noel, who have not previously been the subjects of scholarly considerations of their revival work. Marson has also been the subject of academic recovery by another interviewee, David Sutcliffe.

 GUEST

Dr Katie Palmer Heathman completed her postgraduate studies at Leicester University in 2016 with the production of her thesis: Revival: the transformative potential of English folksong and dance, 1890-1940. Recent publications include ‘Lift up a Living Nation’: Community and Nation, Socialism and Religion in The English Hymnal, 1906', Cultural and Social History, 14:2, 183-200 Feb 2017. Also, ‘I Ring for the General Dance’: Morris and Englishness in the work of Conrad Noel’ in The Histories of Morris in Britain, ed. by Michael Heaney (EFDSS) 2018.  Co-written with Amy Palmer, she has a chapter, ‘Cecil Sharp’ in Unfolding Creativity: English Pioneers in Arts Education, 1870-1939, ed. by John Howlett and Amy Palmer (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)

Katie’s interview with Simon Machin was recorded at Cecil Sharp House on 18 April 2019.