About

Martha Bayless is a cultural historian, academic, folklorist, and rambler through time, with special affinities for the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century. She has an AB from Bryn Mawr College and an MA and PhD from the University of Cambridge, and she teaches culture and folklore at the University of Oregon. She divides her time between Cambridge; Oregon; and a small but mighty town in Indiana, where she lives in a house that has been in her family since it was built in 1878.

She works on the history of popular culture, and especially humour, games, magic, oral storytelling, and food. And murders. With Debby Banham, she is the founder of the Early English Bread Project, which explores bread as a cultural force in early England.

She has appeared in various media speaking on humour, history, and folklore. A list of recent appearances is here.

She blogs from time to time at The Past is a Foreign Country, where you can find her explorations into topics such as Santa Claus, work songs, and muffins. She is on X-formerly-known-as-Twitter and Bluesky as @Tenthcentury.

She can be contacted at mjbayles <the usual at sign> uoregon.edu.