General Feedback/Questions on Audio Lecture Program

This forum is for focused discussions on The Collected Lectures of Joseph Campbell. Each lecture has its own dedicated conversation.

Moderators: Clemsy, Martin_Weyers, Cindy B.

drichards
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Price Fixed

Post by drichards »

Phil
Thanks! I see the pricing has been changed to reflect the correct pricing of $5.99 each

SongwriterPhil
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Post by SongwriterPhil »

drichards,
thanks for the heads up-- much appreciated!

the new batch of lectures showed up in iTunes a couple days ago, but (as you discovered) there were some technical issues with them (beyond even just the pricing issues)...

i've been on the phone with support over the past day and they're rolling out the fixes into iTunes as quickly as they can. Once everything's good to go, we'll make the official announcement that the lectures are available; until then we're keeping things under the radar.

hopefully this won't be an inconvenience for any other eagle-eyed associates :-)

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

Another thing, can you make sure that the lectures
will be available on iTunes stores worldwide?

Because apparently iTunes has a regional
structure and not all items are available
everywhere.

Let me explain.
You know, one has to have an iTunes account
to buy something and if your billing address
is outside Continental US,
you simply encounter an error message
like below:

'Your request could not be completed.
The item you've requested is not currently
available in the French store'

Is there anything you
can do about it like changing the options?

Thank you, SongwriterPhil.

Martin_Weyers
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Post by Martin_Weyers »

Thanks Ercan, for this important information. In regards of Campbell, the French seem to be even more ignorant than the Germans. :twisted: I tested the German iTunes store, on Phil's request. The lectures are available there, and it doesn't depend on the location of your billing account. I'm wondering how many iTunes stores offer our lectures. Maybe Phil knows more about this.
Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further. -- Rainer Maria Rilke

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

Merci for your compliments :-)
Now, it works well both in French and
Spanish
stores.
You can even send chique emails
right from iTunes and invite your
friends come around and listen to your
favorite albums in most online
stores across Western Europe.
Yet my gremlins keep on asking:
What about other parts of the world?

Tell me why, why, why can't
my dreams come true? :cry:

Bob Wagner
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Post by Bob Wagner »

When are the next audio lectures due to be released?
Is there a problem that is slowing down the process?

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

Bob,
Apparently, the only problem here is the law of supply and demand.
Honestly, I don't think there's enough demand for the time being.
One can feel it from the talk over the threads. People look full.

PS: Certainly, that's my personal opinion. I'm not talking in the name of JCF.

SongwriterPhil
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Post by SongwriterPhil »

Bob and Ercan,

Thank you both for your continued and outstanding interest in the lectures!

Here's an update-- and admittedly, an overdue one-- as there's been a long silence on our end since releasing the last batch in July.



First of all, rest assured that the plan of releasing 90+ of Campbell's talks over the coming years, with small batches becoming available in short regular intervals, is still very much in full swing, despite the recent delay.

The lectures remain a high priority at the JCF, as the revenue generated by the lectures goes a long way toward making other JCF initiatives possible.


Next Release: The next set of three lectures should be available sometime in March, with shorter intervals between releases thereafter.

(To address Ercan's post, there is, in fact, a very healthy demand for the lectures-- although browsing the conversation forums might suggest otherwise. Bear in mind that the forums don't always show a complete picture as JCF Associates who are active in the forums represent only a very small percentage of the entire JCF Associate community, which in turn represents only a small percentage of the members of the general public who are interested in Campbell's work.

In actuality, we constantly field inquiries regarding the availability of the next lectures.)


~~~


*Finally, the answer to the question: what's been taking us so long... Great question!
There's a constellation of reasons behind this recent delay, some of which include:

- a background re-shuffling of lecture order as better quality source tapes (than the ones we were about to release) have been identified

- having to move some archived tapes and equipment as JCF has closed its physical office in California

- some re-shuffling of who's doing what as the JCF has had to re-organize behind the scenes to adjust to the realities of the current economic climate

- refining our production pipeline for a short term hit but hopefully greater long-term productivity

- the inescapable general nature of doing the kind of labor-intensive work involved in restoring, transfering, transcribing, editing, mastering and releasing these works at a professional grade of quality and presenting them in a cohesive way, from the thousands of old, and sometimes uncataloged, recordings we have, much of which are on very old media that has been decaying for decades and require some attention.


In short, it's been a learning process for us as we mount this ambitious release series. We plunged forward with great heroic spirit to put the releases out figuring that there'd be valuable learning for us as we went, in the process of the doing. Over the course of the first two sets of releases, we've received tremendous feedback from the JCF Associate community which has impacted our approach and helped us to refine our process. We were hoping that that would happen, and it did!

Hopefully now, most of the kinks have been worked out and we hope that this delay will prove to be a 'one step back, three steps forward' situation as we resume production with a quicker, better schedule than we would have been able to achieve before.



In the meantime, we'll continue to use this forum to communicate directly with you, so please continue to chime in with comments or questions as you have them!



Thanks, as ever, for your patience and interest!
-Phil

sgmitch
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Hero's Journey Lecture?

Post by sgmitch »

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the recent update regarding the next release of audio lectures. I am one of those who's interested!

I'm wondering if Campbell ever recorded a lecture on the Hero's Journey specifically. Campbell said in at least one interview that "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" was basically his first lecture series at Sarah Lawrence, so it seems strange to me that there's no recording of it.

I would be very interested in hearing this information in lecture form (vs. an audiobook version).

Thanks,
Sean

SongwriterPhil
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Post by SongwriterPhil »

Hi Sean,
First of all, apologies for the long delay in responding to your question...!

Let me answer in a couple parts:


Part One:
I just took a look through our vast Campbell lecture database (of which there are over 1,000 entries), and, as you would expect, there do appear to be a few on the topic of the Hero's Journey, judging by the titles of the lectures... I counted about 5 (out of the lectures which do have a title recorded).

(In addition to these, there are many lectures listed in the database without titles, some of which were recorded at Sarah Lawrence, and these may contain some additional lectures on Joe's favorite topic as well...)


Part Two:
Systematically going through the entries of the lecture database (which is basically just a spreadsheet), and then identifying, locating, evaluating, transferring and polishing the actual physical media on which the lectures reside is a massive undertaking, and is precisely what we are committed to in bringing you The Collected Lectures of Joseph Campbell series of digital releases.

The presence of the name of a lecture on the master list, however, doesn't necessarily mean that we have it in good enough quality to eventually be able to release in some form-- some of these, for example, have existed for forty years on reel-to-reel tape and have not been well-preserved through the years.

Of the 30 or so lectures in the current production pipeline (which covers the remaining 20 or so that had already been released by HighBridge Audio on casette & CD a decade ago, as well as an additional 10 recorded at Esalen that we have now designated 'Series II, Volume 1'), none are on the topic of the Hero's Journey-- and the next couple years or so will be dedicated to working our way through the release of these titles before we move on to the rest of the archives.

Our long-term aim, however, is to continue to work our way through the archives in coming years, to preserve everything we can digitally, and to bring out what is releasable. There should be in the neighborhood of 90 - 100 lectures by the time we're done, but again, this is a long-term plan ranging over the next 5 to 6 years.

As we go along, experience has already shown us that it's hard to predict on a title-by-title basis what we have, and what the quality level will be, until we really inspect the individual title.



I hope that answers your question as well as it can be answered! As always, thank you for the interest and continued support of the lecture program and the JCF in general.

sgmitch
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Post by sgmitch »

Hi Phil,

Thanks for your detailed response. I downloaded the newly released (and re-released) lectures over the weekend. As much as I enjoy reading Campbell, there is nothing like the experience of listening to him speak.

As a filmmaker, I can appreciate the technical hurdles you must navigate in order to preserve these lectures. Let me humbly submit, however that the "Hero with a Thousand Faces" was the initial insight which lead to all the other lectures, insights, etc. and it would be a terrible shame if this lecture was lost forever. As you point out, this may already be the case.

Since it's likely that this particular lecture is among the oldest in the archive, it seems that it needs immediate attention. Even if it's only to get the reel-to-reel tape digitized and then set it aside to finish the mastering process at a later date.

I realize this is a somewhat thankless task. However, I spoke with a close friend of mine who's a mix and mastering engineer and he expressed interest in volunteering some time to help. I'm sure you don't want too many chef's in the kitchen on this project, but if you'd be open to receiving some help, please let me know and I'll put him in touch with you.

Thanks,
Sean.
sean@seanmitchell.net

SongwriterPhil
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Post by SongwriterPhil »

Sean,
Thanks again for your entusiastic support!. I'll follow up with you in a PM.

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

That's great; we've got new reading material at last :-)
Only, these new threads look 'locked' for the time being ?

Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Until the official launch, Ercan! Stay tuned!
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Officially launched! (Check the Home page.) Threads unlocked!

Clemsy
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

Locked