John Billingsley:
​Soft Power: the emergence of modern apotropaics in Albania

In the traumatic political upheavals that followed the overthrow of Albania’s Communist state, Albanians found that traditional apotropaics may have had metaphysical efficacy, but couldn’t protect them from capitalist evils. The result was the creation of a new apotropaic device that cynically reflects capitalist disposable culture as well as universal sentiment, and has an echo in contemporary western culture.
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Biography:
​John Billingsley is author of ‘A Stony Gaze: Investigating Celtic & other stone heads’ (Capall Bann, 1998), ‘Folktales of Calderdale’ (Northern Earth Books, 2007), ‘Hood, Head & Hag: Further folk tales from Calderdale’ (Northern Earth Books, 2011) and ‘West Yorkshire Folk Tales’ (History Press, 2010), as well as numerous articles in antiquarian journals. He has been editor of Northern Earth magazine for 25 years, and previously taught Yorkshire Cultural Tradition on Bradford University’s regional studies courses.