What should this podcast have been called?
A celebration of our year-long audio journey, hosted by the International Spenser Society
Dear subscribers,
I write with news that the International Spenser Society is hosting a celebration of Occasion of the Season at its annual AGM and Maclean Event, online, on May 21st. If you’ve been listening and thinking along with the podcast, this would be a wonderful opportunity to meet the interlocutors, hear from other listeners, and join the discussion. It will also be a chance to learn more about how a podcast like this works behind the scenes, and perhaps come away with ideas for the future.
I have copied below the full event description from the ISS, along with the registration link. Don’t forget to register in advance so you can join on the day.
https://stanford.zoom.us/meeting/register/_B2V8mAzT0-qNbi9hMiHOw
Also, as subscribers to this podcast and therefore the people who’ve sustained it most visibly with your ears (what a weird sentence), I’ll give you a head-start on picking which of these alternatives from my original list should have been the title of the podcast:
A Bubble blown up with Breath
Greene Beenes: A plaintive, recreative and moral journey through the year
Extraordinary discourses of unecessarie matter
Shepheardes Devise: the snake strikes back
Gang on the Green
What ho Rosalind?
Lettice's Periphrasis
The Madding Mind Goes Round the Bend
Forswonk in May, Forswatt by April
Rank Opinion of Elfes
Very best,
Kat
ISS AGM and Maclean Event
Wednesday 21st May, 9am PST/12pm EST/5pm BST
Occasion of the Maclean
A celebration of one year with The Shepheardes Calender
In the first half of this two-part event we’ll go behind the scenes of the Shepheardes Calender podcast, hearing from three of the people—musician and radio producer Femi Oriogun-Williams, poet NL Chaundler, and poet and English teacher Joseph Minden—who have held it together throughout. As non-Spenserians, what has their experience of reading these poems across the span of a year been like? And what can they teach us about the possibilities and challenges of making podcasts about literature, and engaging in the public humanities more generally?
In the second half we’ll step out in front of the podcast to hear from three listeners: first year English undergrad Julia Zampronio Gurden (Sussex University), PhD candidate Mary Kate Guma (Princeton University) and associate professor of English Dan Moss (SMU). As they have listened to the 12 interlocutors of the podcast discussing each eclogue in The Shepheardes Calender, how has their own thinking about Spenser’s pastoral poetry, or poetry in general, been energised, challenged, or redirected?
We’ll end with an open discussion in which podcast interlocutors in attendance, as well as everyone else, will be able to chime in. What next? What other creative experiments are crying out to be introduced to Spenser’s poetry, or are already underway?
Occasion of the Maclean will be preceded by our Annual General Meeting. To vote in the AGM, you will need to be a current member of the ISS. You can pay dues at our PayPal portal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/spensersociety. Dues are $28 for a regular membership/$18 for graduate students.
Occasion of the Season: The Shepherdes Calender Podcast is hosted by Kat Addis, with support from the ISS. It takes listeners on a journey through the year with Edmund Spenser’s poetic shepherds, and some real ones. The podcast can be downloaded for free on Spotify, iTunes, via Substack, or other major streaming platforms. The latest episode, a conversation with Susanne Wofford on the April eclogue (with some detours into The Faerie Queene), is now live!