We are delighted to announce the schedule for the fourth Academic Archers conference!
Topics cover cradle to grave themes and everything in between. Former pregnancy services worker Carolynne Henshaw talks birth rates and attitudes to pregnancy in Ambridge, and writer and journalist, Rob Stepney answers a common listener question of why are so many of The Archers still around to annoy us, with his paper ‘A series of unfortunate events? Mortality and medical incident in a small Borsetshire village.’
We’ll be looking at childhood, particularly that of Henry Archer, in ‘‘We Should have called him Damien.’ A discussion of the impact of Henry Archer’s early years on potential crimes of the future’, by Nicola Maxfield, Curriculum Manager for Health, Public Services and Education, Alton College, and the quandaries of middle age, through the prism of Shula and Reader in philosophy, St. Mary’s University, Hannah Marije Altorf’s paper, ‘This isn’t about curry, Alistair’: Shula Hebden-Lloyd and Iris Murdoch on Love.’
Brian will be pleased to know that farming business gets its own strand this year. But maybe not so pleased with two of the papers, ‘What to do when you’re no longer Borsetshire’s Business Person of the Year or How to handle a scandal’, from Olivia Vandyk, Communications Strategist, and ‘Borsetshire Businessman or Feckless Farmer?’ from Armchair Soil Scientist, Christine Narramore.
This year also sees strands on Ambridge and rural identities and the demographic composition of Ambridge, and three papers will be queering the village and its residents. Hit of the 2018 conference, NATO advisor James Armstrong is back, with a podcast satire on counterinsurgency in Borsetshire.
The full schedule can be found on the 2019 conference page, and box office is open.