Academic Archers

It’s Saturday, it must be the Archers! Saturday Academic Archers Group aka The Saturday Group This chapter is by fans, about fans, for fans. This chapter explores the creation, development and meaning of a Saturday morning fan group which met online through and beyond the initial COVID-19 lockdown. The chapter describes the initial phase of Saturday morning online sessions over a three-month perio...

Teaching The Archers – creating new fans or turning them off? Caroline Birks In September 2016, Media Magazine published an article that I had written about The Archers and fandom.  In 2017, The Archers became a set text and my article became the go-to resource. I wondered how the students responded to The Archers . I asked the media teaching community on Facebook for classroom anecdotes. Common t...

A Year in Ambridge: Introducing American Students to English Village Culture through The Archers Timothy Vercellotti Global cultures courses are a staple of general education requirements at American universities. Teaching a cultures course poses challenges, however, including appealing to students from all academic disciplines and building a cohesive learning experience around a somewhat amorphou...

Gauging guerrilla engagement: the unexpected benefits of the Academic Archers conference Carenza Lewis Is Academic Archers the best-ever Zoom conference? Attendees in 2021 seemed to think so. Marking the half-decade anniversary of Academic Archers, this chapter explores the benefits of the attending Academic Archers conference, using data from conference feedback in 2017 and 2021 and methods from...

Cult and Culture: Transformative Fandom-de dum de dum de dum Helen Burrows The Archers fits a definition of ‘cult media’ in that it draws a niche audience, has nostalgia appeal and represents a subculture. Like other cult media, it has multiple active communities of people who identify as fans. However, it is also part of wider British culture, recognisable to and even referenced by many who would...

Archers Fandom and the Online Public Sphere  Elizabeth Anne Bailey This chapter considers some of the confluent factors which shape debate in the online public sphere the intersections between this and the practice of fandom generally and Archers fandom in particular. Situating fandom as a part of the wider online public sphere it considers its performative aspects, characteristics of online behav...

When the Script Hits the Fan: Why Archers fans stop listening (and why they can't completely keep away) Sarah Kate Merry According to the BBC Archers website, ‘Listeners to The Archers are loyal fans but take no prisoners’ (BBC, 2016). But are fans of The Archers always loyal in their listening? This chapter presents stories of Archers fans who stopped listening, for various lengths of time,...

Fans, Flouncers, Fundamentalists: Understanding Online Archers Fan Cultures Claire Astbury Fans of The Archers interact in many different groups across multiple online platforms. This chapter explores the motivations of moderators in establishing groups and of fans in joining them, considers how different groups develop their own subcultures, and summarises the benefits of online engagement for fa...

Hello, and thank you for coming to listen to the audio book version of the Academic Archers book, Fandom Culture and The Archers: An Everyday Story of Academic Folk . The book was edited by Dr Cara Courage and Dr Nicola Headlam, co-founders of Academic Archers, with contributions from a number of Academic Archers people. It was published in book form in May 2022 by Emerald, and is the fifth book i...

Evening dinner at Grey Gables, with very special guest and one half of Ambridge on the Couch, Lucy V Freeman. The conference was held over zoom, but we had fun in entering a fantasy world where we held the conference at University of Felpersham, The Orangery, the Tea Room, The Bull, Grey Gables and Brookfield Barn, so you will hear mention of that, as well as our accommodation at anything from The...

Afternoon Tea at The Orangery and The Tea Room, and Women in Ambridge III, the fifth session at the 2021 Academic Archers conference.  Papers include:  A Friend Indeed: Aristotelian friendships in Ambridge , Sarah Kate Merry Shula’s Calling: Whose Idea Is It Anyway? , Meg Burton Learning and love at Borchester College , Ruth Heilbronn and Rosalind Janssen Alice: Through the Wine Glass , Lou Gillie...

Travelling Ambridge between the imagination and the impossible, the fourth session of the 2021 Academic Archers conference.  Papers include:  Ambridge: Imaginary Place or Place of the Imagination?, Gareth Davies  Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be Molly and Tilly Button: Ambridge and the amateur sleuth , Helen Burrows The conference was held over...

Enough about us, what do you think of us?? The Archers Fandom as Action, the third session from the 2021 Academic Archers conference.  Papers include:  Plenary Paper: Gauging Guerrilla Academia – Exploring the impact of the Academic Archers conference , Prof Carenza Lewis  The View from Lakey Hill: How The Archers empowers, liberates and enables blind and visually impaired listeners , Laura Smith ...

Flapjacks and Feudalism: Social Mobility and Class in The Archers, the second session from the 2021 Academic Archers conference.  The session opens with Feeding the Horses , from Dr Nicola Headlam, reading from her chapter in our Flapjacks and Feudalism … book, and talking about the wider neoliberal necropolitics at play when prosperity is built on the backs of those who share in it the least. The...

The Village and the Virus, the first session from the 2021 Academic Archers conference.  We start with a Plenary Paper, Monologuing , from Karen Pollock, followed by It’s Saturday, it must be The Archers, By fans, for fans, about fans , by members of the Saturday Omnibus Group.   The conference was held over zoom, but we had fun in entering a fantasy world where we held the conference at Universit...

This week we are joined by Archers commentariat, Lucy V Freeeman, in a conversation that moves around the village, up the Felpersham bypass, and back again. If you listen to this podcast, please consider supporting us on Patreon towards its upkeep. All monies go to supporting the conference and online community of Academic Archers Research Fellows.

This week, as she got the day off from Grey Gables, we are joined by Kathy Perks, aka, Hedli Niklaus, talking about her Archers story and of course, about Kathy. If you listen to this podcast, please consider supporting us on Patreon towards its upkeep. All monies go to supporting the conference and online community of Academic Archers Research Fellows.

To see us through the Archer-less Fridays and Saturdays for the foreseeable time of isolation, we are back with the Academic Archers Saturday Omnibus for anyone to join, where we revisit past conference papers. This week, the return of Maggie Bartlett, with her fascinating findings from interviews with the ‘silents’ in Ambridge. What they have to say is fascinating, and poignant, and this is one o...

This week, Karen Pollock,  looking at psychological types, and love languages, and in particular exploring those systems which work, and those which are more dysfunctional in Ambridge, in Infj or Leo? Recourse investigator or Plant? Meaningless mumbo-jumbo or useful guides to how we interact with others? If you listen to this podcast, please consider supporting us on Patreon towards its upkeep. Al...

To see us through the Archer-less Fridays and Saturdays for the foreseeable time of isolation, we are back with the Academic Archers Saturday Omnibus for anyone to join, where we revisit past conference papers. This week Prof Carenza Lewis was with us to talk about the Brookfield dig, a topic she predicted in her paper at the first ever Academic Archers conference back in 2016. If you listen to th...

This week our very own Academic Archers co-founder/organiser, Dr Nicola Headlam, spoke from her chapter ‘Feeding the Horses’: Modern Slavery, the dark side of construction hidden in plain sight in Ambridge, ’ in the forthcoming Academic Archers book, Flapjacks and Feudalism: Class Politics in The Archers . If you listen to this podcast, please consider supporting us on Patreon towards its upkeep....

To see us through the Archer-less Fridays and Saturdays for the foreseeable time of isolation, we are hosting an Academic Archers Saturday Omnibus for anyone to join, where we revisit past conference papers. This week, Queering Shula, an updated look at heternormativity in Ambridge , from Karen Pollock ( conference film here ); and A History of Ambridge in 100 Objects (revisited) , from Felicity M...

To see us through the Archer-less Fridays and Saturdays for the foreseeable time of isolation, we are hosting an Academic Archers Saturday Omnibus for anyone to join, where we revisit past conference papers. This week, Ambridge – a case study in using genograms to assess family dysfunctionality , from Lou Gillies and Helen Burrows ( conference film here , 14.37 mins)and ‘An everyday story of count...

To see us through the Archer-less Fridays and Saturdays for the foreseeable time of isolation, we are hosting an Academic Archers Saturday Omnibus for anyone to join, where we revisit past conference papers. This week, two tour de force papers: Can’t Afford the Laurels? - Care Provision in Ambridge in 2041 , from Ruth Heilbronn and Rosalind Janssen ( conference film here 14.4 mins), and ‘This isn’...

To see us through the Archer-less Fridays and Saturdays for the foreseeable time of isolation, we are hosting an Academic Archers Saturday Omnibus for anyone to join, where we revisit past conference papers. This week, The Archers as a Lieu de memoires of the First World War (with possible reference to the virtual Ambridge War Memorial) , from Jessica Meyer, and Psychological Wellbeing in Retireme...