Ph.D

Title: The Space Between is Where the Maysie Lives: Presence, Imagination and Experience in the Traditional Ballad (2012)

Department of Celtic & Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh (AHRC funded) 

[archived here]

Awarded the Michaelis-Jena Ratcliff Prize for ethnology and folklore 2012, ‘an important contribution by an individual to the study of folklore and folklife in Great Britain.’

This research is work of creative, interdisciplinary ethnology which seeks to understand the transformative power of the traditional ballad. The visit of the Maysie is a metaphorical term in Scottish folkloric tradition for the experience of aesthetic ‘chills’ in response to music, song or story — in this case, the visceral power of the unaccompanied human voice in song. In stressing the aesthetic and poetic qualities of ballad presence — rather than focusing on a collection of cultural products or folklore 'texts' - the dynamic, generative power of the ballad as a living voice is emphasised. Using contemporary phenomenological approaches, this work asks, how do we make sense of ineffable, ambiguous yet deeply moving aesthetic encounters such as the ‘ballad experience’? What is the relationship between our embodied experience and perception, and the language we use to express it?

The work is set within the theoretical framework of phenomenological hermeneutics and connects with theories of folklore performance and practice, ethnomusicology and anthropology, recent research in embodied cognition, contemporary theory of metaphor and with the philosophy of mind, language, music and art.