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Might be the strong coffee, or missing my pill this morning, but my mind's trying to collate some ideas that have been knocking around my head recently.
This morning I rewatched the trailer for The Miners' Hymns, a documentary on 1930s Northern mining towns and their brass bands/unions/religious and friendly societies - there's a strong emphasis on parades and banners; and I wondered if these were descended from the annual Corpus Christi plays performed by the craft-guilds in that same part of the world some centuries earlier. This essay hints they might be, in noting that Coventry's Godiva parade may have started not long after the play were banned, but I didn't come across anything else.
Is it just me, or has there been a big recent revival of interest in UK culture and customs? I've noticed it with British Sea Power, a contemporary rock band whose music contains themes of environmental concerns, nostalgia for Blitz Spirit, and a dash of British neo-pagan mysticism. I' feel like Nu-Who also embraces this phenomenon - perhaps trying to reclaim nationalism from the far-Right? Does this relate to the revisionist-nostalgia of steampunk? How can those of us who like this sort of thing stay on the path of "reviving DIY, craft and appreciation of history without blinding oneself to all the -isms?" I suppose by constant mental self-checking just like with everything else. Certainly London's Tweed Run as photographed by Susie Bubble appears encouragingly heterogenous.
Would appreciate notes from those who are living in the UK and/or are real live academics.
This morning I rewatched the trailer for The Miners' Hymns, a documentary on 1930s Northern mining towns and their brass bands/unions/religious and friendly societies - there's a strong emphasis on parades and banners; and I wondered if these were descended from the annual Corpus Christi plays performed by the craft-guilds in that same part of the world some centuries earlier. This essay hints they might be, in noting that Coventry's Godiva parade may have started not long after the play were banned, but I didn't come across anything else.
Is it just me, or has there been a big recent revival of interest in UK culture and customs? I've noticed it with British Sea Power, a contemporary rock band whose music contains themes of environmental concerns, nostalgia for Blitz Spirit, and a dash of British neo-pagan mysticism. I' feel like Nu-Who also embraces this phenomenon - perhaps trying to reclaim nationalism from the far-Right? Does this relate to the revisionist-nostalgia of steampunk? How can those of us who like this sort of thing stay on the path of "reviving DIY, craft and appreciation of history without blinding oneself to all the -isms?" I suppose by constant mental self-checking just like with everything else. Certainly London's Tweed Run as photographed by Susie Bubble appears encouragingly heterogenous.
Would appreciate notes from those who are living in the UK and/or are real live academics.
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Date: 2011-12-01 12:34 am (UTC)From: