Conference considers intersecting histories of print, music and street culture
.jpg)
A world-renowned scholar of traditional song has joined forces with TU Dublin’s School of Media and Centre for Critical Media Literacy to organise an exciting day-long conference on the university’s Grangegorman campus. Steve Roud, whose Roud Folk Song Index is regarded as the definitive database of the anglophone folksong tradition, is the driving force behind the Traditional Song Forum and its annual ‘Broadside Day’ and ‘Broadside Extra’ conferences, which he is bringing to Dublin for the first time on Saturday, October 15th.
‘Broadside Extra: News, songs and provocations in the history of cheap print and street literature’ kicks off at 9.30am.
It’s an opportunity to gather and talk about the fascinating field of cheap print and street literature of the past. Roud says. “That includes broadsides, chapbooks, last dying speeches, catchpennies, garlands, and news sheets, penny histories and children’s books, popular prints, pedlars, jobbing printers. ballad-singers, and so on.
Researchers and enthusiasts from both sides of the Atlantic will take part in the hybrid conference, hosted in TU Dublin’s new East Quad building – itself home to hundreds of students and scholars of music, media, art, and visual communication.
Harry Browne, Senior Lecturer in the School of Media and one of the conference organisers, says: “The day features nine new research papers on topics ranging from women as printers, publishers and ballad singers to the hand-coloured broadsheets of Jack B. Yeats, with street-sweepers and firebrands along the way – as well as plenty of time to discuss and debate what it all means.”
There will be opportunities for singing too, with sessions organized at An Góilín singing club at the Teachers Club in Parnell Square on the evening of the 14th and at the Cobblestone after the conference on the 15th. Conference-goers can also join a singing and walking tour of the north inner city on Sunday morning, October 16th.
In addition to An Góilín, the event enjoys the support of Poetry Ireland, the Irish Traditional Music Archive, and the National Print Museum. A full programme of talks and events is available at https://www.itma.ie/events/broadside-extra.
The conference is free and open to the public, with registration required on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/broadside-extra-tickets-394601151667