معرفی
Ceri Houlbrook is a Lecturer in History and Folklore at the University of Hertfordshire’s School of Creative Arts, Department of History. Her research focuses on the heritage and material culture of ritual practices in the British Isles from the 18th century to the present. She holds a PhD from the University of Manchester (2014), specializing in the archaeology of coin-trees and their cultural significance. Her work bridges historical, anthropological, and museum studies approaches.
Key projects include the AHRC-funded Bottles Concealed and Revealed (2019–2022), exploring witch bottles, and the Inner Lives project (2015–2018), investigating supernatural anxieties in domestic spaces. She co-curated the Ashmolean Museum’s Spellbound exhibition and the Electric Generations exhibitions in Dublin, Hatfield, and Manchester. Current initiatives include the StoryMachine project (2025–2028), applying spatial hypertext systems to folklore studies.
Houlbrook is co-editor of The Materiality of Magic (Oxbow) and Magical Folk (Gibson Square), and editor of the Folklore Society’s FLS News. She manages blogs like Love-Lock Diaries and Concealed Revealed, and leads the ACAD Facebook group, a global network studying modern ritual deposits. Her research spans love-locks, concealed bottles, and post-medieval ritual practices.
