Hello you two!

Announcing our guest speakers for Academic Archers 2020.

DumTeeDum’s hilarious Lucy V Freeman (Lucy has been listed in Huffington Post's 'Funny Women to Watch') joins us as our Saturday night after-dinner speaker; and at our Museum of English Rural Life welcome reception on the Friday, we are joined by Ben Scott-Robinson, of The Small Robot Company, with a lost pitch to the Ambridge Conversation Trust selection committee.

The Friday welcome reception has sold out, but there are still tickets for the ‘formal-ish’ dinner – and if you have heard Lucy’s Ambridge monologues, you know we are in for a treat. We say ‘formal-ish’ as you are welcome to come dressed for The B@Ambridge, to Lower Loxley Orangery, to a plate of oven chips with Johnny -and after dinner speech from Lucy V Freeman.

University of Reading’s Whiteknights campus (which contains the Cedars hotel, the Meadow suite and the Park House bar. Pre-dinner drinks, Park House Bar, from 6 pm, for 7.30 pm seating.

Tickets here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/academicarchers

 More on Lucy:

Lucy is co-founder and presenter of DumteeDum, the Archers podcast which has recently been Top Ten in iTunes. She is a comedy writer and actor and writes for the BBC and corporate clients including: Radio 4, BBC Earth, StoryWorks, Shell, Ballou PR, Weber Shandwick, PayPal, BT and Network Rail. Lucy has worked on BBC local radio, written and presented on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service as well as being a freelance journalist on The Times 'Body & Soul' section, The Guardian 'Family' section and Discovery magazine and been a contributor to BBC Woman's Hour, Sky One to Three, BBC 5 Live and BBC Breakfast News. 

More on The Small Robot Company:

The Small Robot company is revolutionising farming with an easy, low-cost, leasing service of autonomous, precision agri-robotics for a healthier, more efficient and sustainable future. This ‘Farming as a Service’ end-to-end system is designed to increase crop yields, accelerate food automation, preserve soil condition and provide a step change in productivity, accelerating the pace towards automation in the farming industry. Its team brings together pioneers and leaders in their fields of agriculture, engineering, machine learning and engineering. Gathering over 15 years of academic research in agri-robotics and 20 years of service design experience we will help farmers to continue to feed our population in a sustainable and smart way.

 

 

 

READING CONFERENCE ACCOMMODATION UPDATE

Great news, EasyHotel in Reading is offering conference delegates a special rate! £35.00 per room per night (subject to availability of course.)

To book, call the hotel on 01183043400 or email reading@easyhotel.comquoting 'Academic Archers.'

As with EasyHotels, its a basic one, but for the one or two nights at that price, who can complain...

12 minute walk from the train station, and a bus ride and short walk to MERL and the conference venue (around 6 minutes in a taxi.)

Photos below and have a look at the hotel website here > https://www.easyhotel.com/hotels/united-kingdom/reading/reading?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=GBL-readinghowever

Academic Archers 2020 conference proceedings announced!

Exciting times at Academic Archers as we can announce the speakers and papers for our fifth conference, taking place 28 February to 1 March next year, at The Museum of English Rural Life and University of Reading.

We are turning our lens to the family dynamics of Ambridge, as well as imaging it as both Springfield and an Egyptian village. This year too, with now five years of Academic Archers under our belts, we are turning the lens on ourselves, asking what Archers fandom is all about (aside from shouting at the radio as our dear Ambridgians go about their daily lives.)

All the info can be found below, and with box office open and tickets selling fast, we advise people to get in quick - and links to all the ticket types can be found below.  

 

Academic Archers 2020, conference proceedings

Friday, 28 February to Sunday, 1 March 2020

 

The Academic Archers MERL Take Over, Friday 6 pm to 8.30 pm

Welcome Reception, The Museum of English Rural Life.

Join us for the opening reception of the 2020 and fifth Academic Archers conference as we take over the Museum of English Rural Life for the evening! We have planned a pop-up exhibition of all things The Archers in its collection, a tour of its galleries, and a buffet dinner (and a special guest TBC!)

 

Tickets: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/academicarchers/290982/

 

Academic Archers 2020, Saturday 9 am - 5.30 pm (Sunday, 9.30-12 – see below)

Conference, The Great Hall, University of Reading.

Weekend tickets: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/academicarchers/293547/

Limited-number Saturday Day Tripper tickets: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/academicarchers/293554/

Academic Archers Formal(ish) Dinner tickets: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/academicarchers/293559/

 

8.30                                 Doors and registration

9 – 9.15                          Welcome from Dr Cara Courage and Dr Nicola Headlam, and Academic Archers Assembly 1                          

Session One: Family - Power and Influence

9.15 - 9.45        Keynote: The 2020 network. One in, One Out, Dr Nicola Headlam               

9.45 - 10           Parents, siblings, and the pursuit of power: Predicting the future leaders of Ambridge, Timothy Vercellotti, Professor of Political Science, Western New England University                       

10 - 10.15         ‘From the moment those two joined the committee it’s been grunge bands, sumo wrestlers and souffle competitions’ - What Ambridge’s civil society says about UK politics in 2019, Amy Sanders, PhD student, Cardiff University

Questions/discussion

10.30 - 10.45   Visionary or Vanity Project – Will the Ambridge Conservation Trust deliver a sustainable future?, Shirley Cramer, CBE CEO Royal Society of Public Health and Food, Farming and Countryside Commissioner, and Jo Bibby, Director of Health at the Health Foundation

10.45 - 11         “If you have security, Ed, that is everything”. Deconstructing ‘security’ as a buffer against life’s challenges, Lalage Cambell, retired Principal Lecturer, Reader and Head of Department of Applied Psychology at Cardiff Metropolitan University

11 - 11.15         The law of the land, land law and family dynamics in The Archers,       Elizabeth Campion, Master of Laws at the University of Cambridge  

 

11.15 - 11.25 Tea Break

 

11.25 - 11.30   Archers Assembly 2                 

 

Session Two Family dynamics - wellbeing and mental health      

Talking Cures

11.30 - 11.45   “They Needed Counselling”, Karen Pollock, psychotherapist specialising in Gender, Sexuality and Relationship diversity           

11.45 - 12         The healing powers of everyday country folk: The Archers? Better than therapy!, Dr Fiona Starr, Clinical Psychologist and an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Middlesex University in London            

Ageing in Ambridge

12 - 12.05         Joe’s Funeral, Abi Pattenden, Funeral Director

12.10 - 12.25   Psychological Wellbeing in Retirement: What The Archers tell us,        Bronwen Williams, mental health nurse

12.25 - 12.40   Can’t Afford the Laurels? - Care Provision in Ambridge in 2041,                    Ruth Heilbronn and Rosalind Janssen, UCL Institute of Education

12.40 - 12.55   Why are the residents of Ambridge so financially gullible and what can we do about it??, Prof Joanna Gray, Birmingham Law School

12.55 - 2         Lunch

 

2 - 2.10             Archers Assembly 3                 

 

Session Three: the fandom panel

2.10 - 2.25        Fans, Flouncers, Fundamentalists: Customs and belief systems of The Archers online fanbase, Claire Astbury

2.25 - 2.40        Cult and Culture: Transformative Fandom de dum de dum de dum,           Helen Burrows, retired senior lecturer and practitioner in Social Work          

2.40 - 2.55        Gauging Guerrilla Academia – Exploring the impact of the ‘Academic Archers’ conference, Prof Carenza Lewis, University of Lincoln                 

2.55 - 3.10        When the Script Hits the Fan: When Archers fans stop listening – and why they can’t completely keep away, Dr Sarah Kate Merry, Coventry University

3.10 - 3.25        “I hate The Archers because…” - a conference intervention, Dr Jerome Turner

Panel responses and questions          

 

3.40 - 4           Tea break

 

4 - 4.10             Archers Assembly 4   

 

Session Four: Intertextual Lucky Dip

4.10 – 4.25       Rude mechanicals– Professional representations of the ‘amateur’ in The Archers Pantomime, Hamish Fffyfe

4.25 - 4.35        Baddies in wheelchairs and the Disneyfication of Disability, Dr Pauline Eyre

4.35 - 4.45        An overview of management styles in the Archers with a discussion of Douglas McGregor’s management Theory X and Theory Y to the Ambridge workforces, Lucinda Bufton

4.45 - 5              DumTeeDum singalong recording, Academic Archers 2020 Conference Award Ceremony

5 - 5.10             Conference proceedings close for the day

Walk/drive/taxi to dinner venue

6.30                   Meet for pre-dinner drinks, Park House, Whiteknights Campus, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6UA

7 – 11                Academic Archers Formal(ish) Dinner, The Meadow Suite, Park House

 

ACADEMIC ARCHERS 2020, Sunday, 9.30 am -12 pm

Conference, The Great Hall, University of Reading.

 

9.00                   Doors and tea and coffee

 

Session 5: Sunday Best

9.15- 9.25         Bringing Ambridge to an Ancient Egyptian Village, Rosalind Janssen, UCL Institute of Education

9.25 – 9.35       Ambridge vs. Springfield, Gary Gilday

9.35 -9.50         A divided village: a narrative study using a theoretical lens of speculative ontology, M Bartlett

10.00 - 11.15   Live Listen, Sunday The Archers Omnibus – and world record attempt at the Tweetalong (tea and coffee available – wandering about encouraged) 

11.15                 Conference closes

 

Academic Archers Fifth Annual Conference 2020: Call for Papers

Dr Cara Courage and Dr Nicola Headlam invite the submission of abstracts to the fifth Academic Archers annual conference on the subject of BBC Radio 4’s The Archers.

Academic Archers are an established experimental academic community where a cornucopia of insights are explored by Research Fellows (qualifications: committed listener) and professional academics (qualifications: university affiliation or independent scholar, broadly defined or specialist practitioner, and committed listener.) The conference is expected to be held over a February 2020 weekend, at a university venue close to London.

Academic Archers are methodologically heterodox and welcome emerging ideas in experimental format, conventional and bids for keynote speakers and submissions are invited from any academic discipline.

 

For this, our fifth annual conference, we seek presentations - with the broadest possible interpretation - on the conference themes of:

1 – Family dynamics: the psychology and business of family relations

For example:

·         How family dramas, inheritance politics and reversals of fortune keep us all hooked.

·         Family and Kinship in Borsetshire.

·         How the case for family therapy/ grief counselling/couples counselling has become unanswerable.

·         Family (business) planning – how not to do it?

·         Macro and micro power; how national politics affect family politics

This conference strand will be curated into a 2021 edited collection for Emerald Academic Press.

  

2 - Fandom as a prism

For example:

·         Using The Archers in teaching and/or research.

·         The online tribes of the wider The Archers firmament.

·         Salience in listener lives: why listeners form intimate relationships with The Archers characters.

·         ‘I listen but I’m not a fan’ identity in The Archers fandom.

This conference strand will be curated into a 2020 edited collection for Emerald Academic Press.

 

The two strands and examples are of course not an exhaustive or exclusive listing and we seek papers on any and all aspects of life in Ambridge.

We welcome wildcards, flights of fancy and suggestions from leftfield. We have accepted papers as films, podcasts, posters, photo-essays, as well as the gamut of quantitative and qualitative approaches, archival and imaginative methods. These topic and format lists are meant to inspire you to think how your academic research, sector professional expertise or listener forensic knowledge of The Archers can illuminate and explain life of The Archers and Ambridge.

 

What you can expect as a presenter is the most committed and engaged audience of your life, listening avidly with curiosity, generosity and joyfulness and probing with the most penetrating of questions.

What we expect of presenters is to be an active member of the Academic Archers community of practice, contributing to media coverage, blogposts, podcasts and other promotional activity as appropriate.

 

If you are a fellow The Archers fan and/or academic please submit your abstract of 200 words with a short biography to cara@caracourage.net and headlams@gmail.com by 1st September 2019. Please indicate the type of presentation you are intending (Quick Pitch, 5 mins, plus Q+A; paper, 15 mins plus 5 mins Q+A; keynote, 45 mins to include Q+A.)

Programming will be determined by an Academic Archers peer review panel made up of our listener research fellows (who give the most detailed of feedback!!)

Decisions will be communicated to presenters by mid-October.

 

A History of Ambridge in 100 Objects?

A post from Felicity Macdonald-Smith, following her paper on the same at conference in Sheffield this year.

I began my talk on the material culture of Ambridge at the Academic Archers 2019 conference in Sheffield by referring to Neil MacGregor’s Radio 4 series and subsequent book ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects’ (MacGregor, 2012), in which he ‘retell[s] humanity’s history through the objects we have made’ (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrtd2/episodes/downloads, accessed 8 May 2019). The objects he chose ranged from a 2,000-year old Egyptian mummy, via a Roman silver cup, an Easter Island statue, porcelain vases from the Chinese Yuan dynasty, and an early Victorian tea set, to a 21st century credit card and solar-powered lamp.

The term ‘material culture’ was probably first used about objects like these by General Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, writing in 1875, when he defined it as ‘the outward signs and symbols of particular ideas of the mind’ (Hannan & Longair, 2017). Pitt-Rivers donated his collection of ethnographic and archaeological objects to found the Pitt-Rivers’ Museum in Oxford. Other explorers and collectors were inspired by his gift and the museum now holds over 500,000 items, organised by functional categories, e.g. arms and armour, food and food preparation, medicines and medical instruments, coins and currency etc.

As a follow-up to my talk, Cara Courage suggested that the Facebook group might try to add to the list of Ambridge objects I had put forward, with the aim of getting to a total of 100. Not surprisingly, the group rose to the challenge with great enthusiasm, and 143 different objects were proposed, in 185 comments.

I made several attempts to reduce this to a round 100, using various methods:

  • Not including landscape and locations, however evocative of numerous life-changing events, based on an early definition of material culture as ‘that segment of humankind’s biosocial environment which has been purposely shaped by people according to culturally dictated plans’ (Schlereth 1985, my italics). I also excluded whole buildings, despite them being objects of cultural significance. [Lakey Hill, the motorway service station where Heather died, the village shop, The Bull, the urinals at the Cat & Fiddle, the bar from Nelson’s wine bar].

  • Eliminating animals (even stuffed) on the grounds that they constitute specimens rather than artefacts. [Captain, Scruff, llamas, Hilda Ogden, the badger shot by David, the dead fish found in the Am by Kirsty].

  • Rather reluctantly, I also omitted Joe’s Farmers’ Lung, on the grounds of intangibility, although I suppose an X-ray might have been possible (RIP Joe – although this has not yet happened at the time of writing).
    I merged suggestions where they referred to the same character, e.g. for Lilian – a gin bottle, her favourite gin glass, and a packet of fags.

I submitted a further enquiry to the Facebook group, about items which had been suggested, but I couldn’t clearly remember from my personal listening history. Other contributors were able to elucidate in a few cases, but where doubt remained, I omitted them, on the grounds that they were probably part of a minor incident and as such, not very memorable. My readers are free to disagree! [‘the locket’ - unspecified, may have been given to Lizzie by Nigel; ‘tree festooned with HeatherPet’s toilet rolls’ - not an actual incident, just a reminder of Ruth’s father’s occupation; ‘Fabrice’s CCTV’ - don’t remember any mention of this or any reason why it would be significant].

At this point I started to classify the items into groups. In the spirit of Pitt-Rivers, these were not chronological, but were categories such as ‘agricultural machinery/implements/vehicles’ or ‘food and drink’. This is when I realised that a significant number of the suggestions related to specific incidents, such as the Sid/Jolene shower scene (sorry!) or Shula playing the recorder on Christmas Day at the age of ten (someone clearly has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Ambridge history!).

This led to a complete rethink: what 100 items truly reflect the material culture of Ambridge, rather than the plotlines of the drama – oops! I mean events which have occurred during the timeline of the documentary? So here is my attempt at ‘A History of Ambridge in 100 Objects’. The numbers in brackets indicate where they were nominated by more than one person. I also had fun adding further objects in the process of categorising, because they seemed to be iconic and essential ‘signs and symbols of particular ideas of the mind’ (Pitt-Rivers, 1875 see above).

Agricultural machinery/vehicles/implements/buildings
Many of these items represent ‘traditional’ farming methods, rather than modern, intensive, factory-farming, and as such are a reminder of the origins of the programme, which was supposed to be an educational tool for the post-war agricultural community. One notable exception is the polytunnel, which has additional connotations, as a site for romantic encounters.

1.       a pig ark (3)

2.       David’s toy farm (2)

3.       Bartleby’s pony trap

4.       farm implements belonging to the first generation of Archers: Dan (billhook and plough-horse harness) and Doris (lambing tongs)

5.       one of Jill’s beehives

6.       Tom Forrest’s shotgun

7.       Tony’s old Fergie tractor

8.       a piece of farm machinery salvaged and resold by Josh

9.       the chicken shed (‘egg mobile’) built by Bert Fry for the Fairbrothers

10.   a polytunnel

11.   a quad bike

12.   one of the caravans where the fruit pickers lived

Sadly, in light of current storylines (Ed’s involvement with Tim, and Brian’s contamination case), we should add to this category:

13.   a container of illegal pesticide

‘Community’
This category is a loose collection of places, buildings and other items which illustrate participatory aspects of village life.

14.   the tabard (and supervisor badge) worn by Susan in the village shop, run by the community (2)

15.   a copy of the Borchester Echo (2) – I imagine this to be a typical local paper, containing reports on school sports days, the flower and produce show, parish council elections etc.

16.   a copy of Borsetshire Life – a more upmarket publication, with photos of the Hunt Ball and ‘county set’ weddings

17.   a microphone from Radio Borsetshire

18.   Martha Woodford’s phonebox (2)

19.   Martha Woodford’s hanging baskets

20.   a bell from St Stephen’s, to represent both the bellringers and the bells that fell down from the tower

21.   the church flower rota

22.   a Loxley Barrett school photo

23.   ‘object to represent Borchester Land’ (AGM agenda?)

24.   ‘object to represent Rodway & Watson’ (house sale details?)

25.   the cricket nets and the single wicket trophy

26.   a women’s cricket ‘box’ – deserves a separate listing!

27.   a pantomime script, a cuttings book of reviews, and the ‘fake bum’

28.   a Brownie uniform (they were involved in one of Lynda’s productions)

29.   the maypole/maypole ribbons (maypole dancing also organised by Lynda)

30.   the local history book written by Jennifer Aldridge and John Tregorran (Tregorran & Aldridge, 1982)

31.   the ‘shop closed’ sign from Nelson Gabriel’s antique shop

32.   one of Brenda Tucker’s marketing leaflets

33.   a badge from the SAVE (Save the Ambridge Vale Environment) campaign

34.   a birthday card – always delivered by hand and in person

35.   the Freda Fry trophy from the flower and produce show

36.   a copy of the WI magazine

37.   a vintage cup and saucer from the tearoom

38.   the bunting (of course!)

The last two items in this category are not strictly ‘communal’ as they are situated in Lynda Snell’s garden, but they illustrate the villagers’ amused tolerance of the antics of incomers:

39.   the Resurgam stone – also commemorating the flood

40.   Lynda’s shepherd’s hut, built by Eddie to her design (more or less!)

Memory
“... people sediment possessions, lay them down as foundations, material walls mortared with memory, strong supports that come into their own when times are difficult and the people who laid them down face experiences of loss.” (Miller 2008)

41.   the Grace Archer window in St Stephen’s

42.   Debbie’s jewellery box, with the ballerina ‘that doesn’t stand up any more’ – reclaimed by Debbie when the Aldridges were leaving the Home Farm farmhouse

43.   the old sofa in the Home Farm kitchen – reminisced about as a centre of family life by Jennifer and Peggy on the same occasion

44.   the home-made Christmas tree decorations at Lower Loxley – the subject of a conversation between Lily and Rex

45.   the mangle which had belonged to ‘My Susan’, Joe Grundy’s late wife

46.   Ornament of a Staffordshire bull terrier, given to Jack by Peggy, in memory of Captain

47.   old toys: David’s farm (again), Henry’s rabbit, Ruairi’s Mousie

Food and drink
Not easy to include in a collection such as the Pitt-Rivers Museum, or the British Museum, but since the Ambridge museum is a virtual one, possible deterioration will be disregarded. Local produce and home cooking feature strongly in this group.

48.   a Borsetshire Beauty apple

49.   Borsetshire Blue cheese

50.   Bridge Farm kefir

51.   Label from ‘Tom Archer sausages’

52.   Freda Fry’s hotpot recipe/casserole dish

53.   Aunty Satya’s favourite recipe

54.   lemon drizzle cake and cake tin – preventative measures against Type 2 diabetes (Michael 2017)

55.   Jill’s flapjack – also comes under the heading of ‘community’, as used in activism!

56.   Carol’s ‘herbal’ teas

57.   a pint of Shires (3) – the preferred drink of most of the Ambridge male population and representing the pub as a social centre of village life

58.   Cider Club shed (and loo), cider press (2), glass of Tumble Tussock cider (“actually dissolves spoons” Banks-Smith, 2019)

59.   a few turkey feathers (from the Grundy pre-Christmas enterprise)

60.   a bottle of Scruff ‘craft’ gin

61.   the Brookfield aga – also fits into to the categories of ‘community’ and ‘agriculture’

62.   a menu from “the takeaway on the bypass”

63.   a box which once contained frozen pizza

Clothing and jewellery
Some of these items refer to specific incidents, but nevertheless can also be seen to typify cultural or community activities.

64.   Nigel’s gorilla suit (2)

65.   Jolene’s country & western outfit

66.   Eddie’s hat with horns

67.   Joe’s trick trousers that the ferret got stuck in

68.   Molly Button’s tap shoes

69.   Brian’s/Nelson’s cravat

70.   Shula’s cream cardigan

71.   a pair of running shoes (Usha’s/Annabelle’s/Alistair’s?)

72.   the necklace Helen claimed to have made at evening class when she started seeing Rob

73.   Nigel’s mother’s brooch (given to Lizzie) and brooch given to Ruth by Jill

74.   Pat’s wedding ring (an eternity ring)

75.   the bracelet Pat had received from Helen, which she gave to Natasha for Christmas (5)

This last item deserves special mention, because it was – perhaps surprisingly - the most popular of all those mentioned by members of the Facebook group. In terms of material culture, I think this incident tells us quite a lot: it reflects Pat’s belief that gifts given and received should be of similar monetary value (she was embarrassed that Natasha had brought lavish presents for all the family); it shows that she doesn’t want to appear ungenerous to her son’s girlfriend, or possibly that she doesn’t want to lay herself open to criticism by Natasha; and could also be interpreted by future historians as illustrating the acceptability of the practice of ‘re-gifting’, although Helen certainly did not find it acceptable.

Character
Although this grouping contains items representative of specific village characters, they can also be seen as representative of class, attitudes, hobbies or occupations.

76.   Nelson Gabriel’s black satin sheets (2)

77.   Mr Snowy ice-cream van (2)

78.   Eddie’s guitar

79.   Clarrie’s dresser, damaged in the flood and unsuccessfully restored by Eddie and Joe

80.   a piece of furniture ‘upcycled’ by Fallon

81.   Lilian’s gin bottle and cigarettes/ashtray

82.   a book on ‘choosing a name for your baby’ in which Lilian has written ‘Mungo? Seriously???’

83.   Jim’s classic Riley

84.   Kate’s smudging sticks

85.   Information leaflets on having a baby by AI (Helen) and surrogacy (Adam & Ian)

86.   Photo of Mrs Antrobus with her dogs

87.   Kenton’s bouncy castle

88.   Ben’s airgun

89.   Lily’s Gwen John painting (left to her by Nigel for her 18th birthday)

90.   Freddie’s secret stash

91.   Russ’s multi-temperature kettle

92.   Susan’s chilli con carne recipe

93.   Jennifer’s kitchen: special sink, taps, food mixer, wine fridge

94.   Thor’s hammer (Mjolnir) made by Chris Carter

95.   the ‘fairy’ doors constructed in the woods as part of one of the Grundy money-making escapades

96.   Usha’s Hindu statue (installed at the vicarage, to Shula’s dismay)

97.   Walter Gabriel’s leech jar

98.   Fabrice’s scissors

99.   Cutlery Derek Fletcher used to juggle with at village shows

100.                        Leonard’s sketches of snowdrops

Thank you to the Academic Archers Facebook community for your suggestions: comments and further ideas always welcome!

References:

Banks-Smith, N., ‘The Archers’ Joe Grundy: farewell from me and the ferrets’, The Guardian, 25 April 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/25/nancy-banks-smith-on-the-archers-joe-grundy-farewell-from-me-and-the-ferrets [accessed 20 June 2019]
Hannan, L., and Longair, S., History through Material Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017).
MacGregor, N., A History of the World in 100 Objects (London: Penguin, 2012).
Michael, C., ‘The Ambridge Paradox: Cake Consumption and Metabolic Health in a Defined Rural Population’, in C. Courage and N. Headlam (eds), Custard, Culverts and Cake: Academics on Life in The Archers (Bingley: Emerald Publishing, 2017).
Miller, D., The Comfort of Things (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008).
Schlereth, T.J., ‘Material Culture Research and Historical Explanation’, The Public Historian, 7:4 (1985), 21-36, p.21 [cited in Hannan and Longair, see above].
Tregorran, J., and Aldridge, J., Ambridge: an English village through the ages (London: Borchester Press, 1982). [Really written by William Smethurst and published in association with Methuen by arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corporation.]

 

Academic Archers on tour!

We’re heading out to some of the literary festivals this year - sometimes with Charlotte Connor, aka Susan Carter, and Cara will be giving her talk on The Archers this May, listings and box office links below.

May

My BDSM relationship with The Archers, Dr Cara Courage

Catalyst Club

16th May, 7.30 pm

Lewes Arms, Lewes

http://www.catalystclub.co.uk

 

Cara Courage, Nicola Headlam and Charlotte Martin - Gender, Sex and Gossip in Ambridge: Women in The Archers

Hay Festival

Event 268, 30th May, 5.30 pm, Oxford Moot stage

https://www.hayfestival.com/p-15444-cara-courage-nicola-headlam-alison-hindell-and-charlotte-martin.aspx

 

 August

Gender, Sex and Gossip in Ambridge: Women in The Archers, Cara Courage and Nicola Headlam

Curious Arts Festival

23-26 August, Pippingford Park

https://curiousartsfestival.com/

 

 September

Gender, Sex and Gossip in Ambridge: Women in The Archers, Cara Courage and Nicola Headlam

Chiswick Book Festival

14-15 September

http://www.chiswickbookfestival.net

 

October

Gender, Sex and Gossip in Ambridge: Women in The Archers, Cara Courage and Nicola Headlam

Henley Literary Festival

1st October

https://henleyliteraryfestival.co.uk

We never thought we'd have to spell this out...

…but we LOVE The Archers, despite what a certain national Sunday newspaper said today.

Academic Archers exists to provide a place for us to share our mutual love of The Archers. The new book, whilst gathering together papers which explore feminist perspectives, is in no way hostile to the show. It is a long love letter to The Archers, as is everything we do.

Our values of generosity, curiosity and joyfulness inform our books and conferences and we are heartbroken that anyone could see us in opposition to the show.

‘Life’s a Soap Opera’ - Carole Boyd, aka Lynda Snell, opens Academic Archers 2019

We are delighted, bouncing off the walls with excitement, over the moon happy to announce that The Archers actor Carole Boyd will open the 2019 Academic Archers gathering, with an after-dinner talk, ‘Life’s a Soap Opera.’

Carole will share some entertaining revelations about her unfortunate connection with Lynda Snell - come behind the scenes to learn the truth about this most delusional of self-styled Cultural Crusaders! Enjoy  hilarious outcomes when fiction and reality go into meltdown and, best of all, discover the secret of life!

Academic Archers 2019 takes places 5-7 April 2019 at Sheffield University. Tickets and full conference information available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/academic-archers-2019-in-sheffield-tickets-46680949978

Custard...reviewed in the TLS

A review of Custard, Culverts and Cake appears in the current Times Literary Supplement, and the reviewer seems to have the measure of us perfectly! 

'It may look otherwise, but Custard, Culverts and Cake: Academics on life in “The Archers” is not a spoof. Instead, it involves the application of genuine research methodologies and concerns to the world of Ambridge and Borsetshire, which some people continue to believe is fictional. To underline that that is not the case, here each of these fascinating case studies is “peer reviewed” by an actual Ambridge inhabitant, so real academic protocols are applied throughout.

Ambridge is an outlier and a singularity, as well as a real place. Christine Michael’s essay on “The Ambridge Paradox: Cake consumption and metabolic health in a defined rural population” is a model social-medicine study that exposes a mystery on a par with the negative correlation in France between high blood pressure and coronary thrombosis.'