Folk Songs in 21st Century: Ritual, Ceremony, and Euphoria 

Deadline for Submissions: 

4th August 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Prof Shuchi Sharma
(Professor, Department of English, USHSS, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University)

Ms. Shubhangi Srivastava
(Research Scholar, Department of English, USHSS, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University)

Ms. Mitali Bhattacharya
(Research Scholar, Department of English, USHSS, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University)

contact email: 
folk.songs.2026@gmail.com

Call for Book Chapters for Edited Volume 

Folk Songs in 21st century: Ritual, Ceremony, and Euphoria  

Deadline for Abstract Submissions: 4th August 2025
 

“Folklore can persist only in its function… variability is the essence of its existence.” (Bausinger, 1990, p. 14)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

The 21st century has been observing shifting cultural and traditional panoramas, due to changing social norms, rapidly evolving world politics, intense globalisation, unpredictable economics, and the nonpareil rise of social media. People are constantly in touch with other people, forming new groups every minute, thereby dissolving distinctions signified by culture, class, caste, race, religion, and nationality. Such a drastic repositioning of human life, which is constantly being displaced and remodeled, has also brought revisions to the understanding of ‘folk’. American folklorist Alan Dundes, describes folk as “any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor” (1965, p. 2). Under the ambit of this definition, there are endless folk groups intersecting with one another at all times. Dundes’ definition of folk, however, resonates more within the context of contemporary times than the pre-capitalist, pre-industrialization, and pre-globalization era, where folk groups were strictly tethered by topographical and cultural roots. These folk groups observed a variety of rituals and ceremonies specific to their culture. Rituals were generally performed to mark an individual’s or a community’s transition during rites of passage like birth, death, or public mourning, while ceremonies were meant to be public events that included such rituals. These events were marked complete by a defining component - traditionally choreographed performances of folk songs. American folklorist Robert Winslow Gordon describes a folk song as “a body of song in the possession of the people, passed on by word of mouth from singer to singer, not learned from books or from print. . . . Genuine folk songs are not static, but are in a state of flux; they have been handed down through a fair period of time, and all sense of their authorship and origin has been lost” (1938, p. 3). Depending on the occasion, folk songs can have varied form and function–some require an all-women ensemble, others involve musical instruments; some call for audience participation, while others are performed in secrecy to ward off evil. Yet, the underlying purpose of these performances has always remained the same: to evoke a sense of euphoria among the folk. Be it the times of merriment or despondence, these songs were performed and celebrated to bring the folk together, sharing the gains and the losses, thus allowing them to revel in the spirit of shared unity. Folk songs, consequently, have maintained relevance down the ages. 

American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax similarly states that “folk stock is not stagnant, some songs are dying, some are on their last legs, but out of them and beyond them new songs are growing up better adapted to survive in our seas of restless and eternally unsatisfied people” (2003, p. 3). Thus, it can be posited that folk songs also emerge as essential cultural artefacts, which are capable of adaptation, perseverance, and transformation as per the new locale. The 21st century, significantly marked by immigration (national and transnational), hence displacement of people from their native roots, has not simply witnessed the erosion of traditional performances of folk songs, but also enabled their reinvention and reclamation in the form of protest, longing, and liberation. Evolved expressions of folk culture, such as digital funerals, virtual rituals and ceremonies, and diasporic festivals that remodel traditional conventions for newer generations continue to place folk songs at their center. The function of folk songs thus remains resilient, even though its stage continually shifts. These songs become tools through which not only indigenous, but also diasporic communities express cultural memory, native identity, and dissent towards the dominant structures of power. A remarkable example is the African-American folk song, “We Shall Overcome”, which originated as a church hymn, rooted in the oral traditions of enslaved Black communities in the American South. Over time, the song transformed into an anthem of protest during the Civil Rights Movement, its melody symbolic of historical grief and collective hope.
Whether sung orally, archived digitally, or remixed into commercial songs, folk songs continue to act as bearers of cultural resilience, repositories of intergenerational wisdom, and sources of personal and historical reclamation. The euphoria, thus experienced, highlights its unvarying ability to unite individuals, offers comfort and a sense of belonging amidst the complexities of modern life. Stuart Hall rightly states, “Diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference.” (1990, p. 223). The folklore thus (re)produced remains an amalgamation like all traditional forms—its distinctly cross-border influences setting it apart, while the collective pursuit of euphoria binding it together. 

The proposed volume seeks to bring together well-informed research on the evolution of folk song traditions in the fast-evolving 21st century across the globe, and how they continue to shape and be shaped by ritual, ceremony, and the pursuit of euphoria, both in traditional and evolving forms. With the application of interdisciplinary perspectives in Folkloristics, such as Anthropology, Sociology, Ethnomusicology, Gender Studies, Performance Studies, Diaspora Studies, Digital Humanities, and Postcolonial Theory, the genre of folk songs will be studied as a whole, despite the various barriers of cultural, religious, and national borders. Through this synthesis of diverse outlooks, this volume aims to reach a holistically diversified understanding of the sustenance of folk songs in the 21st century.  

The volume is expected to be published by July 2026. Original and unpublished research articles are invited (but certainly not restricted to) the following areas:

• Decline of Folk Song Traditions in the 21st century 

• Influence of Folk Songs on Commercial Music 

• Folk Songs in the music genres such as Pop, Hip-Hop, Country music, and more 

• Memes and the Digital Reinterpretation of Folk Songs

• Digital archiving of folk songs on social media platforms 

• Folk songs in Folk Theatre

• Folk songs in children’s games (Ring Around the Rosie, Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky, and more)

• Similarities and dissimilarities in the motifs of folk songs across the globe 

• Changing ‘performances’ of folk songs in the 21st century 

• Politics or Aesthetics?: Folk Songs in the 21st century

• Diasporic variations of folk songs (Geet Gawai of Mauritius, Baithak Gana of Suriname, and Chutney Music of Trinidad & Tobago are variations of folk songs that emerged during the indenture period in India)

• Historical marginalisation and reclamation of Folk Song Traditions 

• Inter-caste and inter-religious themes in folk songs 

• Sanitisation of folk songs for the ‘urban’ audiences

• New methodologies to study folk songs 

Submission Guidelines:

• Articles should strictly follow APA 7 style guidelines.

• The proposals should contain an abstract within 500 words, a maximum of four keywords, and a brief bio-note of the author within 150 words.

• The abstract, keywords, bio-note, and other credentials should be sent in a separate MS Word file.   

• The last date for submission of abstracts is 4th August 2025, and they must be sent to folk.songs.2026@gmail.com.

• Selected contributors of abstracts will be notified by 10th September 2025.

• The full papers (expected by July 2026) should be approximately 5000 to 7500 words in length, including notes and bibliography.  

Contact Information  
folk.songs.2026@gmail.com
shuchi.sharma@ipu.ac.in
08shubhangi04@gmail.com  
bhattacharyam318@gmail.com 

References 

Bausinger, H. (1990). Folk culture in a world of technology (E. Dettmer, Trans.). Indiana University Press. (Original work published 1961)

Dundes, A. (Ed.). (1965). The study of folklore. Prentice-Hall. 

Gordon, R. W. (1938). Folk songs of America. New York, NY: National Service Bureau.

Hall, S. (1990). Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference (pp. 222–237). Lawrence & Wishart.

Lomax, A. (2003). Selected writings, 1934–1997 (R. D. Cohen, Ed.). Routledge.