Photo credit: Alex Leggatt
Girton College is delighted to announce that Professor James Wade, Vice-Mistress, Fellow in English, and Director of Studies at the College, is to publish his new book, Folk: A History in Twelve Songs, with leading independent publisher Faber.
Drawing on his longstanding research into folklore, literature and song from the Middle Ages forward, Folk explores the stories, traditions and cultural histories carried through folk songs. Taking readers on a lyrical journey through twelve songs, the book considers how music reflects the experiences of ordinary people, from the blues to protest songs, from tunes to help pass the working today to those that accompany an evening’s carousing.
Rather than treating folk songs as works with a single author or fixed meaning, James explores how they are passed between generations, continually changing through performance and reinterpretation. The result is an exploration of folk culture as a living tradition: one shaped by the people who sing, share and adapt its stories.
Professor Wade is a scholar of literature, music, popular culture, and folklore, from the Middle Ages to the present day. His research has featured in print and broadcast media from over 40 countries worldwide, including, in the UK: the Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Metro, Sun, Daily Mail, BBC News, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, and BBC Greatest Hits; and, in the USA: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American, Vice News, and CNN. He is the author of Fairies in Medieval Romance and editor of the fifteenth-century English romance Sir Torrent of Portingale. His research has also brought fresh attention to medieval minstrelsy, popular entertainment and the history of storytelling.
Folk brings these scholarly interests to a wider readership, demonstrating how the study of traditional songs can open up new perspectives on cultural history and the ways communities understand and express their experiences.
The book will be published by Faber in March 2027.
Girton congratulates James on this exciting publication and looks forward to sharing more about the book in the months ahead.