Occasion of the Season reaches the half-way point of its journey through the year in October: jump aboard!
Occasion of the Season is a podcast about English Renaissance pastoral poetry, rural and social life, folk music, visual art, sheep and goats. Supported by the International Spenser Society, the podcast follows Edmund Spenser’s poem The Shepheardes Calender (1579), through the year month by month. Each month Dr Kat Addis, who is based at the University of Sussex, talks with Spenser scholars from a wide range of universities and career stages about the poem, interspersing this conversation with various seasonal special features. So far, these have included sound recordings from Lisbon, an interview with goat farmers in Sussex, a goatherd in the Hebrides, an expert on children’s literature in Colchester, antiracist protest chants from Brighton and a poet in the Scottish borderlands responding to each poem. Listeners have so far described it as ”a warm bath of intellectual complexity”, and ”informative and fun”. We invite contributions and feedback from all members of the SRS. Episodes are available at https://occasionoftheseason.substack.com/podcast and all the major podcast/music platforms.