Folklore, Custom and Contemporary Legend - The CCL Research Group at SHU.

The Centre for Contemporary Legend (CCL), a research group based in SSA/MAC, aims to create a UK institutional base as a focal point for all those working in the field of folklore and legend studies. Absolutely integral to this discipline is the examination of how folkloric traditions and behaviours develop and evolve and how they can reflect both national and communal identity. Folklore studies is more relevant than ever in the current national and global situation. The UK’s decision to leave the European Union and the developing Covid-19 crisis have both brought forth significant changes at an unprecedented pace. In her March 2020 broadcast to the nation HM Queen referred to the need for the country to pull together and evoked a sense of national identity. She suggested that new traditions and customs e.g. displaying rainbows and communal clapping were an expression of “our national spirit” that will help to define our future. How community customs continue to reproduce and evolve within this enforced period of physical separation can be viewed most effectively in the context of folkloric ritual, custom and practice. The fundamental societal shifts of today are the folklore of tomorrow and the CCL aims to capture, examine and share discussion of these phenomena with like-minded scholars via a variety of outputs.