"Spicy Geography" – The Geography Podcast from Würzburg

At the Department of Geography at Universität Würzburg, a new podcast is to be created whose programme is not only aimed at the subject-specific interests of geography students, but is directed at everyone interested in current global political and social issues. For Sprachrohr, the two students responsible for conceiving and implementing the podcast gave me an insight into the development of the project, as well as the thematic focal points and challenges that arise in the course of such an undertaking.

Sprachrohr: Perhaps you could introduce yourselves briefly at the start so that readers have an idea of the people involved in this project. 

Jonathan: So I'm Jonathan and I'm studying Geography in a single-subject Bachelor's degree with a focus on human geography. I'm particularly interested in topics of political geography and cultural geography.

Florian: My name is Florian, I'm also studying Geography with 180 ECTS and my focus is more on physical geography and remote sensing. I'm especially interested in biogeography and geoecology.

Jonathan: Besides the two of us as conceptual staff, there are also people who were and are involved more in the background in the creation of this podcast.

Sprachrohr: In what way?

Jonathan: Prof. Rauh and Prof. Hahn had unused financial resources that were allocated to their respective chairs, which they made available to their staff members Dr. Marcus Werner and Nils Karges. This was done primarily with the idea that lecturers would have easy access to high-quality audio-visual recording equipment, green screens, etc., so they could hold online seminars as well as lectures. Mr Werner and Mr Karges then had the idea that this studio could be used more broadly. And so the idea of a podcast emerged, for which two student staff members could also be hired. That's how we came to the project.

Sprachrohr: I assume you've both put a lot of planning into the podcast?

Florian: Yes, the conceptual development of the podcast is entirely down to us. Since the two positions for the podcast are initially limited until the end of March, we've tried to create a concept that could also be taken on by potential successors and help them in shaping the individual episodes. Since we didn't have much prior experience in this area, we started with the absolute basics. We first familiarised ourselves with the fundamentals of podcast journalism and the associated moral and ethical principles that we want to observe. We also dealt with the various presentation formats of a podcast as well as technical details.

Sprachrohr: How are your episodes to be conceptually designed?

Jonathan: In principle, our podcast will be based on the interplay of three different groups of actors: representatives of the institute, students and us moderators. We want to present both projects and research work by researchers at the institute as well as give space to reports on excursions and other student topics. This will also take place via interviews. We're already looking forward to guests who will enrich our episodes.

Florian: The guests don't necessarily have to be researchers and students of the Geography Institute, but there should definitely be a thematic connection to geography and also to topics such as science communication. Additionally, there will be recurring inserts in the form of literature recommendations and music from our Würzburg area. So the podcast should also be an art product. Entertainment that stimulates thought.

Sprachrohr: What concrete topics could you imagine for your first episodes?

Florian: When this article is published, hopefully our first episodes will already be available to hear. In the first episode, we mainly want to clarify how the name "Spicy Geography" came about. Spoiler: the spices in the kitchen cupboard are just the hook for the background of the naming process. We've also already recorded an episode on the topic of cartography, which mainly deals with the historical development of representations of the Earth. Of course, we'll also be dealing with topics such as human-made climate change.

Jonathan: We're also already looking forward to input and suggestions from our listeners. We've laid the foundation for this podcast, but ideally new people will keep getting involved who want to implement the project with the same passion as we do and have good ideas.

Florian: We hope our listeners have a good error culture (laughs). We're certainly doing everything to the best of our knowledge and belief, but we're pleased with constructive feedback and new inspirations.

The podcast "Spicy Geography" from the Institute for Geography and Geology will be published approximately twice a month in future and can be accessed via Spotify. Furthermore, each episode will be transcribed to make the podcast as barrier-free as possible and to enable easy fact-checking. You'll find further information about the individual episodes on the Instagram account "spicygeography_podcast".