A community of BBC Radio4's The Archers fans with an academic interest in the show.
Our Mission.
Academic Archers is an experimental form of academic community which uses The Archers as a lens through which wider issues can be explored. As a community we share our knowledge of the programme, our research interests, and a lot of laughs, creating the academic field if you will, of Ambridgeology. In all that we do, our values are to be 'curious, generous and joyful'.
“We do this out of a love of the programme and of our subjects and the conference is intended to link the two to illuminate and explain life in Ambridge and use this to throw an interdisciplinary light on wider social issues too.”
— Nicola headlam
Watch past conferences on YouTube: Our lockdown Saturday Omnibus sessions can be heard here.
Watch and Listen.
"I loved presenting at the first Academic Archers. You'll never speak to a more knowledgeable, attentive and mischievous audience."
Dr Samantha Walton, Bath Spa University
Our Community.
Academic Archers are people that have an academic interest in The Archers, whether they are at a university or not, whether they have any formal qualifications or not - the latter being our Research Fellows. We just ask that you have a passion for the programme and a wish to learn more and discuss the issues it rasies in some detail. We meet online and face to face at our annual conference.
3000+
Facebook group members
1200+
conference delegates
170+
presenters
"There are so many years of listening to The Archers in our community, everyone is an academic of the programme, not just those with a degree or 'Dr' in front of their name. All that knowledge is shared in our community - along with a lot of laughs."
- Cara Courage
Get Involved.
If you want to submit an idea for a paper, have a question about Academic Archers, want to support our online community, or if you don't do social media and want to be added to our newsletter to be kept up to date with what we're doing, head to the contact page.
We are also on Facebook and Twitter, and follow #AcademicArchers.