The Iris Murdoch Society podcast (Iris Murdoch Society)

Joining me for this podcast are two Murdoch fans who consider themselves to be 'common readers' (a term taken from Virginia Woolf).Kent Wennman is an artist, musician, and much more; Liz Dexter is a blogger, proof reader, and author of 'Iris Murdoch and the Common Reader'. We discuss what makes Murdoch appeal to all types of reader, and how she might be relevant to new readers in the Twenty-First Century. Liz's Book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Iris-Murdoch-Common-Reader-Dexter/dp/1974249646

Joining me to discuss Murdoch and Religion are Christopher Gowans (Fordham, USA), Scott H. Moore (Baylor, USA) and Frances White (IMRC, Chichester). We cover her life, tensions in her beliefs, her desire for a demythologised Christianity, and her later interest in Buddhism. Chris' website can be found here: http://christophergowans.com Scott's new book, 'How to Burn a Goat: Farming with the Philosophers': https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481311526/how-to-burn-a-goat/ Frances' award-winning biography: https://irismurdochsociety.org.uk/ims-shop/

Joining me to discuss Murdoch's childhood reading, and its impact on her fiction, are Jan Skinner (formerly a tutor at Oxford's Continuing Education Department) and Anne Rowe (Chichester/Kingston). The main books discussed are Treasure Island, the Alice Books, and Kipling's Kim. A taster of Jan's essay can be found here: https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9780230348288 and if you'd like the full text please get in touch. Anne's latest book can be purchased from the Society here:https://irismurdochsociety.org.uk/product/iris-murdoch-writers-and-their-work/

Joining me to discuss Iris' love of Peter Pan, and her use of Barrie's story in her own fiction, are Anne Rowe and Frances White, both from the Research Centre at Chichester. Peter Pan is referenced in nine of her novels, from An Unofficial Rose (1962) through to The Green Knight (1993) although we focus on A Word Child (1975)which the strongest imbued with him. You can find more material in Anne and Cheryl Bove's 'Sacred Space, Beloved City' here: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-4438-0066-2

This 'In Conversation' talk was given as part of the first online Iris Murdoch Conference on the 15th July, 2021. Sarah and Avril discuss the importance of Iris’ use of the gothic, and the impact it had on Sarah's own fiction. Avril Horner (Emeritus Professor, Kingston University) is a world-leading expert in the Gothic. She has co-edited collection on Murdoch’s work, as well as ‘Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch’ with Anne Rowe. Her biography of Barbara Comyns is forthcoming. Sarah Perry is the internationally best selling author of the novels Melmoth, The Essex Serpent, and After Me Comes the Flood, and the non-fiction Essex Girls. She is a winner of the Waterstone’s Book of the Year Awards and the British Book Awards, and has been nominated for major literary prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Folio Prize and the Costa Novel Award. Her essays have been widely published, and she has contributed to the Guardian, the New York Times, the Observer, and the London Review of Books. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has a PhD in Creative Writing, and has been a UNESCO City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague, and a Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library and the Savoy Hotel in London. Her second novel, the No. 1 bestseller The Essex Serpent, is currently being adapted for television, starring Claire Danes in the lead role.

*The handout for this lecture is available on the IMS Facebook Page (link in Bio) or by emailing ims@chi.ac.uk Cora Diamond is a leading American philosopher who is well known for her contributions to the interpretation of Wittgenstein and Frege, for her contributions to the philosophy of logic, mind, language, as well as to ethics, the philosophy of literature, and the philosophical inquiry into our relation as humans to other animals. Her three areas of greatest influence are in the philosophical foundations of logic, the interpretation of Wittgenstein, and the ethical treatment of animals. Partly under the influence of lessons she arrives at through her own original reading of Wittgenstein, she has criticised mainstream tendencies in analytic philosophy across a dizzying range of subdisciplines. Alongside publishing a dozen or so of the most widely discussed articles on Wittgenstein ever written, she has written several dozen articles advancing powerful and influential criticisms of almost every major living figure who takes themselves to be applying Wittgenstein’s ideas to some major area of philosophical research – be it in philosophical logic, contemporary moral theory, animal studies, philosophy and literature, or the study of the history of the analytic tradition of philosophy. Her work has thereby given rise to one whole movement in the interpretation of Wittgenstein (known in the contemporary literature as the resolute reading), to yet another in contemporary moral philosophy and metaethics (known as the realistic spirit approach to ethical problems), and to yet a third in the more narrowly focused field of the moral status of animals (known as the our fellow creatures approach). She has taught at the Universities of Swansea, Sussex, Aberdeen and since 1971 at the University of Virginia, where she is now professor emerita.

The new season of the podcast starts with a special on the author, essayist, critic, spy, journalist and much else besides, Elizabeth Bowen. She was a friend of Iris Murdoch (whom she influenced) 'I was very fond of her...she should have been Queen', Virginia Woolf, and many more. She's now seen as a major figure of Twentieth Century culture. Joining me to discuss her life and work are Nicola Darwood (University of Bedfordshire, Allan Hepburn (McGill University, Canada), and Nicolas Royle (University of Sussex). All three have written and published widely on Bowen's work and are experts in the field. The Bowen - Welty Letters mentioned can be found here: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/iur.2021.0501 More on the relationship between Bowen and Murdoch here. https://irismurdochsociety.org.uk/2020/09/01/literary-motherhood-elizabeth-bowen-and-iris-murdoch/

Joining me today is Prof. Benjamin Lipscomb (Houghton College, NY, USA) to discuss his new book 'The Women are up to Something' which considers the four women who changed philosophy in the mid-Twentieth Century: Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch. You can buy it here! https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Women-Are-Up-to-Something-by-Benjamin-J-Bruxvoort-Lipscomb/9780197541074

In this podcast Miles is joined by Paul Hullah, Associate Professor of English Literature at Meiji Gakuin, and President of the Iris Murdoch Society of Japan. Paul discusses his early life, literature, music and his meeting and subsequent friendship with Iris Murdoch. He and Yozo Muroya edited the only collection of Murdoch's poetry to date, as well as a volume of her essays. We talk about her poetry and why she changed Paul's life. Unfortunately the 'Poems' collection is out-of-print, but Paul hopes to have some copies available in 2022. 'Occasional Essays' by Iris Murdoch is available via Amazon. You can find Paul's tribute to Iris here: https://youtu.be/8q7BV6c2vUE

In this episode I'm joined by Justin Broackes (Brown, USA), Gary Browning (Oxford Brookes), and Alison Scott-Baumann (SOAS)to discuss Murdoch's lifelong engagement with the fiction and philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. From her first meeting with him in Brussels in 1945, right the way through to 'Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals'. Have your copy of Sartre: Romantic Rationalist to hand! Justin is the Editor of 'Iris Murdoch, Philosopher': https://www.bookdepository.com/Iris-Murdoch-Philosopher-Justin-Broackes/9780198701200?ref=grid-view&qid=1639760683318&sr=1-1 Gary is the author of 'Why Iris Murdoch Matters': https://irismurdochsociety.org.uk/product/why-iris-murdoch-matters/ Alison is the co-editor of 'Iris Murdoch and the Moral Imagination': https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0786440260?tag=bookfinder-test-b-21&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1&language=en_GB&selectObb=new

In this podcast Miles is joined by Paul Fiddes, Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Oxford, to discuss his latest book, Iris Murdoch and the Others: A Writer in Dialogue with Theology. Paul is the author or editor of over twenty five books, including recent publications on Lewis and Williams, and a forthcoming monograph on Shakespeare later in 2022. Find the book here: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Iris-Murdoch-and-the-Others-by-Paul-S-Fiddes/9780567703347 You can find out more about Paul, and his research centre, The Centre for Theology and Modern European Thought, here: https://ctmet.theology.ox.ac.uk/home

In this episode Miles is joined by Lucy Bolton (Queen Mary, University of London), Lisa Smithstead (University of Exeter), and Melanie Williams (University of East Anglia)- three noted film scholars - to discuss the impact and legacy of the Oscar-winning film 'Iris', based on the first of John Bayley's memoirs about his wife, Iris Murdoch. You can find Lucy's book on Murdoch here: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-contemporary-cinema-and-the-philosophy-of-iris-murdoch.html and her essay on the film itself, here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt16d6996.10?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

This lecture was given by Peter Webster, a scholar of contemporary religious history, with a particular interest in the religious arts. His most recent book was the first biography of Walter Hussey; Dean of Chichester and patron of the arts. The audio recording of a public lecture given at the University of Chichester on 19th February 2022, as part of a study day at the Iris Murdoch Research Centre. My thanks are due to Miles Leeson for the invitation, and to the audience for a very engaged and stimulating discussion afterwards. I examine Christian reactions to Murdoch’s work in three areas: her strictly philosophical work on metaphysics and ethics, and her novels. I explore the remarkable closeness of Murdoch’s distinctive preoccupations to those of British theologians in the period. However, her position outside the usual circles of Christian discourse made it difficult for her to be heard and, when she was, her fundamentally atheistic position made her philosophical work hard to digest. The final third of the paper then looks at Christian readings of her novels, in which readers found much more congenial material with which to engage. Authors discussed include: (among the theologians) Don Cupitt, Colin Gunton, Eric Mascall, Alasdair Macintyre, John A.T. Robinson, Keith Ward; among the critics: Bernard Bergonzi, Ruth Etchells, David Holbrook, Valerie Pitt. In relation to aesthetics, there is some discussion of Walter Hussey, Anglican patron of the arts. https://peterwebster.me/2022/02/21/iris-and-the-christians-what-did-the-british-churches-make-of-murdoch-1954-c1983/

To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Murdoch's 'Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals' I'm joined by Gillian Dooley (Flinders University, Australia), Nora Hämäläinen (University of Pardubice, Czech Republic), and Frances White (IMRC, Chichester) to give an introductory overview of the work. As this is Murdoch's magnum opus this is the first in a series of four podcasts being released in 2022 focusing on it. You can find Gillian and Nora's edited collection 'Reading Iris Murdoch's Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals' here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-18967-9?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=google_books&utm_campaign=3_pier05_buy_print&utm_content=en_08082017 Gillian Dooley is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in English at Flinders University, Australia. She was the founding general editor of the Flinders Humanities Research Centre's electronic journal Transnational Literature from 2008-2018, and was founding co-editor of Writers in Conversation 2014-2020. She has published three monographs, several scholarly editions and more than 100 journal articles and book chapters including the co-edited Reading Iris Murdoch's Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. Her latest work Listening to Iris Murdoch: Music, Sounds and Silences will be published in the ‘Iris Murdoch Today’ series with Palgrave Macmillan in July this year. Nora Hämäläinen is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Ethics as study in Human value at the University of Pardubice in the Czech Republic. As well as being the author of Literature and Moral Theory and Descriptive Ethics: What Does Moral Philosophy Know About Morality she is also the co-editor of Reading Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals with Gillian. She is currently working on two interrelated projects: completing a monograph called The Making of the Good Person: Moral Philosophy, Self-Help and Technologies of the Self, where I look at some discussions on self-transformation and self-development in philosophy and popular culture. She is also working on a long term project on moral change (the change and renegotiation of moral frameworks and axioms). Frances white is the deputy director of the iris Murdoch research centre at the university of Chichester. As well as publishing widely on Murdoch, including the biography Becoming Iris Murdoch in 2014 she is the co-editor of the Iris Murdoch Today series with Palgrave Macmillan and the Editor of the Iris Murdoch Review. She is currently editing Iris Murdoch and the Literary Imagination, also with Palgrave.

In this episode I'm joined by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza (University College Dublin, and the Centre for Ethics as Study in Human Value, University of Pardubice) and Mark Hopwood (Sewanne, University of the South, USA) to discuss their recently published edited collection 'The Murdochian Mind'. Silvia Caprioglio Panizza is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Centre for Ethics, University of Pardubice, and a fellow of the PEriTiA project (Policy, Expertise, and Trust in Action) at the Centre for Ethics in Public Life, University College Dublin. She has edited and translated Simone Weil’s Venice Saved with Philip Wilson (2019) and is the author of The Ethics of Attention: Engaging the Real with Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil (2022). Mark Hopwood is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of the South, Sewanee, USA. He has published articles on a range of topics in moral philosophy, including love, narcissism, hypocrisy, and the nature of moral judgment, and is currently writing a book on Iris Murdoch’s ethics. You can find out more about the book, and purchase a copy, here: https://www.routledge.com/The-Murdochian-Mind/Panizza-Hopwood/p/book/9780367468019

Join Anne Rowe and Miles Leeson as they guide you around London's Wallace Collection, stopping off to discuss three key paintings that feature in Murdoch's novels: Hal's Laughing Cavalier, Titian's 'Perseus and Andromeda', and Rembrandt's 'Titus, the Artist's Son'. These feature in her first novel 'Under the Net' and her Booker Prize-winning 'The Sea, The Sea', respectively. You can view them here: https://www.wallacecollection.org/art/exhibitions-displays/past-exhibitions/frans-hals-the-male-portrait/ https://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=65351&viewType=detailView https://www.wallacecollection.org/art/collection/collection-highlights/titus-artists-son/ Anne Rowe is Visiting Professor at the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester. Her many books include the first work on Murdoch and Art 'The Visual Arts and the Novels of Iris Murdoch', as well as 'Iris Murdoch' in the Writers and their Work Series.

Gillian Dooley (Flinders University, Australia) is in conversation with Lucy Bolton (QMUL, UK) about her new book, 'Listening to Iris Murdoch: Music, Sounds and Silences' (Palgrave, 2022) - the first book in the 'Iris Murdoch Today' Series. As Lucy says about the Gillian's book: 'When we think of Iris Murdoch’s relationship with art forms, the visual arts come most readily to mind. However, music and other sounds are equally important. Soundscapes – music and other types of sound – contribute to the richly textured atmosphere and moral tenor of Murdoch’s novels. This book will help readers to appreciate anew the sensuous nature of Iris Murdoch’s prose, and to listen for all kinds of music, sounds and silences in her novels, opening up a new sub-field in Murdoch studies in line with the emerging field of Word and Music Studies. This study is supported by close readings of selected novels exemplifying the subtle variety of ways she deploys music, sounds and silence in her fiction. It also covers Murdoch’s knowledge of music and her allusions to music throughout her work, and includes a survey of musical settings of her words by various composers.' Find out more here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-00860-3

Miles is joined by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza to discuss her new book 'The Ethics of Attention: Engaging the Real with Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil'. You can find out more about the book, here: https://www.routledge.com/The-Ethics-of-Attention-Engaging-the-Real-with-Iris-Murdoch-and-Simone/Panizza/p/book/9780367756932 Silvia Caprioglio Panizza is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Centre for Ethics, University of Pardubice, and a fellow of the PEriTiA project (Policy, Expertise, and Trust in Action) at the Centre for Ethics in Public Life, University College Dublin. She has edited and translated Simone Weil’s Venice Saved with Philip Wilson (2019) and co-edited (with Mark Hopwood) The Murdochian Mind (Routledge, 2022).

Miles is joined by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman to discuss their new book, Metaphysical Animals. https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Metaphysical-Animals-by-Clare-Mac-Cumhaill-Rachael-Wiseman/9781784743284 Clare Mac Cumhaill (pronounced Mc Cool!) is a philosopher of mind, working mostly on perception, but with interests in emotion and action, as well as aspects of the metaphysics of mind, and in topics relating to aesthetics. Most of her work is on perception of space, and spatial properties. Her doctoral thesis looked at the perception of empty space and she is still somewhat hung up on this topic, though the ambit of her interests has expanded into working out what explanatory work reflection on space can do, in particular in trying to characterize the nature of our experience in ways that make it immune to skeptical re-description. With Rachael Wiseman (Liverpool), she is co-director of the In Parenthesis project, which focuses on the life, work and friendships of Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe and Mary Midgley (sometimes called the Quartet). The project is investigating whether the collective corpus of these philosophers has the hallmarks of a distinct philosophical school. Read about it here: http://www.womeninparenthesis.co.uk/ Rachael Wiseman work at the intersection of philosophy of mind, action and ethics and has published mainly on the work of G. E. M. Anscombe and Ludwig Wittgenstein. She is currently working on an AHRC-funded project, Perception, Action and the Genesis of Everyday Ethics (PAGE). The project, with Dr Clare MacCumhaill (Durham) is a study of the lives and philosophy of 'The Quartet' of women philosophers who met at Oxford during WWII: Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and Iris Murdoch (www.womeninparenthesis.co.uk). As well as studying the philosophy of four wonderfully creative thinkers they want to understand why there are so few women in philosophy and to work out what they might do about it! The Integrity Project (www.integrityproject.org) looks at the meaning and importance of integrity. Rachael was awarded a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (2016-2017) for work with a local arts organisation, Wunderbar (www.wunderbar.org.uk), exploring artistic integrity and arts fundraising.

In this episode I'm joined by Professor Larry Blum (U-Mass, USA) to discuss his recent entry on Murdoch in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. We discuss his early interest in Murdoch in the 70s, her connections with his philosophical life and the construction of the article, as well as the difficulties in reading Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. You can find the article here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/murdoch/ You can find out more about Larry here: http://www.lawrenceblum.net/ You can hear more about his own journey on the wonderful Five Questions Podcast: https://anchor.fm/kieran-setiya

In this episode Miles is joined by Justin Broackes (Brown, USA) and Meredith Trexler-Drees (Notre Dame, US) to discuss and celebrate Justin's edited collection 'Iris Murdoch, Philosopher' which was published in 2012. We range across the collection, the work it inspired including Meredith's latest monograph, and discuss Justin's latest work on Murdoch's Heidegger Manuscript and his commentary on the Sovereignty of Good, both forthcoming with OUP. You can find the collection here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/iris-murdoch-philosopher-9780198701200?cc=ro&lang=en& Justin is Professor of Philosophy at Brown, and his present research focuses on issues in metaphysics and the theory of perception, and their connections with the history of the subject. Special areas of interest include: Theory of Color and Color-Perception, from the Ancient Greeks to the present; Color-Blindness; and the Notion of Substance, and what became of that idea in the 17th and 18th centuries and after. In addition, he is working on a book on Iris Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good and editing her monograph on Martin Heidegger. Meredith is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Kansas Wesleyan University. Her recent book, Aesthetic Experience and Moral Vision in Plato, Kant, and Murdoch: Looking Good/Being Good (Palgrave 2021) presents an extended version of Iris Murdoch’s moral vision. She is currently continuing her work on Murdoch and Kant at the Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame. You can find her latest monograph here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-79088-2

Joining Miles to discuss Murdoch's sixth novel are Dr Frances White and Lucy Oulton, both from the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester.

Miles is joined by Megan Laverty (Columbia, USA) and Evgenia Mylonaki (Patraas, Greece) to discuss their joint reading of Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. You can find out substantive handout for the podcast where they highlight their reading here: Megan is an Associate Professor and Director of the Philosophy and Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She teaches graduate courses on ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy of education. Megan is the author of Iris Murdoch’s Ethics: A Consideration of her Romantic Vision (Bloomsbury, 2007) and contributed a chapter on civility to The Murdochian Mind (Routledge, 2022) https://www.tc.columbia.edu/faculty/ml2524/ Evgenia is assistant professor of Practical Philosophy at the Philosophy Department of the University of Patras, Greece. Her written work is primarily in ethics (moral experience and virtuous reasoning) and the philosophy of action (metaphysics of action, practical knowledge, and rationality). She is the co-editor of the book Reason in Nature (out in 2022 by HUP, co-edited with Matthew Boyle, University of Chicago). https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674241046 She works on the philosophies of Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe and Philippa Foot and I have a special philosophical interest in animal lives, in the collapse of ways of living and in art (film, photography and the novel). I am currently working on a book project with the title "Moral Growth; A Study of Ethics in Experience". You can find her published work, and her website, via these links. https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/the-individual-in-pursuit-of-the-individual-a-murdochian-account/16322292 https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/manuscrito/article/view/8654130/18852 https://www.evgeniamylonaki.net/

Miles is joined by Larry Blum (U-Mass) to discuss the life and work of Dorothy Emmet, a philosopher of the prior generation to Murdoch who work in numerous different areas of the subject. Later in her life she and Murdoch became friends ; Larry sees her work as in some ways very much in the spirit of the Quartet’s, though in other ways quite different.. Emmet and Murdoch had some significant areas of professional and personal contact. You can find out more about Larry here: www.lawrenceblum.net/ You can hear more about Larry's journey on the wonderful Five Questions Podcast: anchor.fm/kieran-setiya

Miles is joined by Carole Sweeney (Goldsmiths University, London) and Joe Darlington (Futureworks Media, Manchester) to discuss a range of authors who emerged post-World War 2, inspired by the works of the high modernists and the French Nouveau Roman. They were writing at the same time as Murdoch, but in very different modes and genres. Do they even form a real grouping? Authors discussed, or mentioned, include: Brigid Brophy, Anthony Burgess, Christine Brooke-Rose, Angela Carter, Eva Figes, B.S. Johnson, Anna Kavan, Ann Quin, Muriel Spark, as well as those in their circles, and those who published them. Joseph Darlington is the author of The Experimentalists (Bloomsbury, 2021), as well as Christine Brooke-Rose and Post-War Literature (Palgrave, 2021), and British Terrorist Novels of the 1970s (Palgrave, 2018). He was editor of BSJ: The B.S. Johnson Journal and now co-edits the Manchester Review of Books. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/experimentalists-9781350244405/ https://www.waterstones.com/book/christine-brooke-rose-and-post-war-literature/joseph-darlington/9783030759056 Carole Sweeney is Reader in English Literature and Goldsmith University, London and focuses on the intersections of race, class, sexualities and gender in modern and contemporary literature and culture. Her first book, From Fetish to Subject: Race, Modernism and Primitivism, examined how the colonial iconography of the black body was deployed in cultural modernism and how anti-colonial and decolonising cultural movements emerged in opposition to this aesthetic racialisation. She followed up this work by publishing widely on Francophone-African writing, in particular by women writers and then by examining racism, anti-feminism and misogyny in contemporary fiction. Her most recent book Vagabond Fictions: Gender and Experiment in British Women's Literature 1945-1970 examines the evolution of feminism and sexual identity in post-war Britain. Carole's current research project is on the continuing battleground for women's bodies and sexualities in contemporary literature and culture and will include work on feminist creative criticism. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-vagabond-fictions.html Carole and Joe both appear in this excellent collection: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-72766-6

In this podcast is joined by Jan Skinner (Oxford) and Anne Rowe (Chichester and Kingston) to discuss the range of children and adolescents in Murdoch's work. What purpose do they serve? And why are so many damaged and dangerous? Novels discussed in depth include The Sandcastle, An Unofficial Rose, The Nice and the Good, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, The Bell, The Green Knight, Jackson's Dilemma and The Italian Girl.

In this episode Miles is joined by Nikhil Krishnan(University of Cambridge)to discuss his new book 'A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy at Oxford 1900-1960'. https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/A-Terribly-Serious-Adventure-by-Nikhil-Krishnan/9781800812369 We cover the change in generational thinking, the rise of linguistic analysis and 'ordinary language philosophy', and the key figures of the time, including Ryle, Ayer, J.L. Austin and, of course, the Quartet: Anscombe, Foot, Midgley and Murdoch. Nikhil Krishnan is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Robinson College. He wrote his doctorate in Philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford and his work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New Statesman and he regularly reviews a wide range of books for the Daily Telegraph.

In this episode Miles is joined by Prof. Anne Rowe (Chichester and Kingston) to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of what may be Murdoch's greatest novel. Anne is Visiting Professor at the IMRC at Chichester and Emeritus Research Fellow at Kingston. Her many books include 'Iris Murdoch' in the 'Writers and their Work' Series, which you can purchase at a discounted rate from the Society, here: https://irismurdochsociety.org.uk/product/iris-murdoch-writers-and-their-work/

In this episode Miles is joined by Greg McElwain (College of Idaho, USA) and Ellie Robson (Birkbeck, University of London)to discuss the life and work of Mary Midgley. Greg is Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Religious Studies at The College of Idaho, USA. His research focuses on the thought of Mary Midgley and the intersection of animal and environmental ethics. He is the author of Mary Midgley: An Introduction (Bloomsbury, 2020) and is currently working on a book based on his interviews with Midgley from 2011-18 titled Mary Midgley on What Matters: Conversations on Science, Ethics, and Nature (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). You can buy 'Mary Midgley: An Introduction' here: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781350047563 Ellie recently completed her PhD at Birkbeck, University of London. In her thesis, Ellie argues that Midgley’s meta-ethics is best-read as a form of Neo-Aristotelian naturalism. Her research addresses the neglect of 20th century women philosophers from analytic philosophy and provides an explanation of Midgley’s relative oversight within this tradition.

In this episode Miles is joined by Gillian Dooley (Flinders University, Australia), Jan Skinner (Formerly Oxford University's Continuing Education Department), and Frances White (Chichester University) to discuss the influence of Jane Austen, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf on the thought and writing of Iris. Gillian Dooley is Honorary Associate Professor in English Literature at Flinders University Australia. Editor of From a Tiny Corner in the House of Fiction: Conversations with Iris Murdoch as well as the recent Listening to Iris Murdoch: Music Sounds and Silences recently published with Palgrave. She’s also published widely on Austen, and is the leading expert on Austen’s connections with music. Jan Skinner was formerly a tutor at Oxford's Continuing Education Department, who has published work on the connections between George Eliot and Murdoch. Frances White is author of the forthcoming monograph Iris Murdoch and Remorse with Palgrave Macmillan, as well as the co-edited collection Iris Murdoch and the Literary Imagination. She has written most detailed examination of Murdoch’s connections with Woolf in the collection Iris Murdoch Connected which is published by the University of Tennessee Press.

Miles is joined by Lesley Jamieson (Centre for Ethics as Study in Human Value at the University of Pardubice, Czech Republic) to discuss her new book, 'Iris Murdoch's Practical Metaphysics: A Guide to her Early Writings' (Palgrave, 2023). You can find out more about the book here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-36080-0

In this podcast, Miles is joined by Eva-Maria Düringer (Tübingen, Germany) and Mariëtte Willemsen (Amsterdam University College) to discuss their work translating 'The Sovereignty of Good' into German and Dutch respectively. Eva-Maria Düringer is a researcher at the University of Tübingen, Germany, where she currently leads a funded project on suffering and its role in virtue ethics - you can find her website here emduringer.de. Her work is very much influenced by the writings of Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot. She is the author of Evaluating Emotions (Palgrave 2014) and various articles on emotions and ethics. As well as the German translation of The Sovereignty of Good which came out this past July with Suhrkamp, here: https://www.suhrkamp.de/person/eva-maria-dueringer-p-17193 Mariëtte Willemsen is senior lecturer in Philosophy at Amsterdam University College. She teaches courses in Ethics and The History of Philosophy, with a focus on Arthur Schopenhauer, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch. Together with Hannah Altorf she translated Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good into Dutch (Boom 2003). Her most recent publications look into connections between Schopenhauer and Murdoch, and Weil and Murdoch. Together with Hannah Altorf she is currently working on a translation of Iris Murdoch's 1977 book, The Fire and The Sun. Why Plato Banished the Artists. You can find the details of their translation here: https://www.deslegte.com/over-god-en-het-goede-1195981/ There's a great interview with Mariëtte here: https://blog.apaonline.org/2021/05/14/genealogies-willemsen/

In this episode Miles is joined by artists Kevin Petrie (University of Sunderland), Matthew Richardson (University of Kingston) and Carol Sommer to discuss their latest work which has been inspired by Murdoch's writing. Kevin Petrie is Head of the School of Art and Design and Professor of Glass and Ceramics at University of Sunderland. He is known for his artwork on ceramics and glass, especially in combination with printmaking and drawing. Kevin has also written and edited a number of books and articles about ceramics and glass and lectured around the World. Kevin’s artwork is held in a number of private and public collections including National Glass Centre and National Museums of Scotland. In recent years, Kevin has focused on his painting practice and this work can be seen on his website at https://kevinpetrieart.com. Matthew Richardson is an artist and illustrator who works across physical and digital media seeing how things fit or collide through processes of collage and assemblage. He is interested in how, why and what is kept or discarded, lost or found, and left behind. He studied at Central St. Martins and Cardiff University and is currently completing a practice-based PhD at Kingston School of Art, titled Para-illustration: Gaps, fragments and spaces of the literary imagination, which explores the materiality of a writer’s notes, drafts and archives as a method for making literary images. https://matthew-richardson.co.uk/ Carol Sommer visual artist and art educator based in Darlington, Co. Durham. I’m interested in the potential of piracy to interrogate value systems. Sometimes within the aesthetic context of conceptual writing, my practice includes making books, videos, performances, installation and an Instagram account @cartography_for_girls. In 2019 I completed a practice led Ph.D. at Leeds Beckett University, and I am the author of ‘Cartography for Girls, an A-Z of Orientations Identified within the Novels of Iris Murdoch’. Her work is currently being exhibited at the Phoenix Art Space in Brighton until the 19th November as part of the ‘Are you a Woman in Authority’ exhibition. https://www.carolsommer.net/ https://www.phoenixbrighton.org/Events/are-you-a-woman-in-authority/

In this episode Miles is joined by Gillian Dooley (Flinders University, Australia) and Daniel Read (Kingston University, UK) to celebrate the Twentieth Anniversary of 'From a Tiny Corner in the House of Fiction: Conversations with Iris Murdoch', a collection of interviews with Murdoch from across her career, as well as to discuss the wealth of unpublished interview and conversational material in the Kingston Archive. We discuss what we can learn about her works but, perhaps more enticingly, the woman behind them. Until the end of 2023 the collection is half price from the publisher using code JHOL23. https://uscpress.com/From-a-Tiny-Corner-in-the-House-of-Fiction Gillian Dooley is an Honorary Associate Professor in English literature at Flinders University, South Australia. She has published widely on various literary and historical topics, including Jane Austen, Iris Murdoch, J.M. Coetzee, V.S. Naipaul, and the maritime explorer Matthew Flinders. Her latest monograph is Listening to Iris Murdoch: Music, Sounds, and Silences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), and her book She Played and Sang: Jane Austen and Music is due out from Manchester University Press in 2024. Daniel Read teaches and researches at the University of Kingston, UK. He is an editor of the Iris Murdoch Review and his first monograph, The Problem of Evil in the Fiction and Philosophy of Iris Murdoch is due to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in the 'Iris Murdoch Today' series in 2024.

In this episode Miles is join by Paul Hullah (Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo) and Chiho Omichi (Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo) to discuss Murdoch and Japan - her visits, the inspiration she took from Japan, Murdoch in translation, her philosophical links, the Japanese Murdoch Society, and much more. https://irismurdochjapan.jp/en/ Paul Hullah (MA (Hons), PhD) is Associate Professor of British Literature at Meiji Gakuin University and, since 2015) has been President of The Iris Murdoch Society of Japan (1997-). With Murdoch’s active participation, he co-edited and wrote a 'Critical Introduction’ to the authorised collection of Murdoch’s Poems (UEP 1997), and her Occasional Essays (1998). He has published literary studies, including Romanticism and Wild Places (Edinburgh University Press & Quadrega 1998) and We Found Her Hidden: The Remarkable Poetry of Christina Rossetti (Partridge 2016); twenty university-level ‘literary’ textbooks, including Rock UK: A Sociocultural History of British Popular Music (Cengage, 2013); and seven collections of award-winning poetry, including Climbable (Partridge 2016). Murdoch herself described Hullah’s poetry as ‘fine... with an enchantment that touches me deeply’, and John Bayley also praised his work. Hullah received the 2013 Asia Pacific Brand Laureate Award for ‘paramount contribution to the cultivation of literature’. He was keynote speaker at the 2022 Tenth International Iris Murdoch Conference (University of Chichester, UK), contributed a chapter on Murdoch and Zen to the recent volume Iris Murdoch’s Literary Imagination (Palgrave Macmillan 2023), and is currently working on The Japanese Iris: Murdoch’s Affinities and Interactions with Japanese Thought, a critical monograph tracing the important impact of Japanese ideas on Murdoch’s literary and philosophical writings. Chiho Omichi is Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan and Vice President of the Iris Murdoch Society of Japan. She earned a BA in English literature from Tokyo’s Keio University, MAs from Keio University and London University, and a PhD from Keio University. Her research considers British 20th-century women novelists, particularly Murdoch and Dorothy Richardson, and she has published widely in this area.

This talk was given by Professor Anne Rowe at the Iris Murdoch Research Centre, University of Chichester (UK) on Saturday 17th February 2024. Anne Rowe is Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester and Emeritus Research Fellow with the Iris Murdoch Archive Project at Kingston University. Her publications include The Visual Arts and the Novels of Iris Murdoch (2002); Iris Murdoch: A Literary Life (2010) with Priscilla Martin, and Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch 1934-1995 (2015), co-edited with Avril Horner and Iris Murdoch (2019) in the Writers and their Work series from Liverpool University Press. She has just completed work as a co-editor of the Poetry of Iris Murdoch (Forthcoming).

In this special edition of the podcast Miles is joined by Dan Read (Kingston) to answer questions sent in by listeners. These are: Is it possible to say where Murdoch stands in relation to other ‘great’ writers? Is she on a par with Dickens, Shakespeare (or others) for example? In A Fairly Honourable Defeat Murdoch assigns astrological birth signs on several of the characters, and they discuss the subject somewhat knowledgeably. Does she give evidence of interest in the subject in other works? Do we know if de Beauvoir read Murdoch? Does she mention Murdoch anywhere in her writings? Did any other existentialists reply to Murdoch’s criticisms of their views? To what extent are changing ways of reading Murdoch novels mere fashion, and how much do they have to do with what someone might refer to as “academic work”? Iris seemed to say that philosophy and fiction were totally separate things. Is this borne out in her work or not? I'd like to know more about which of her contemporaries she admired most as a reader. (And the writers she hated reading!) Did Kierkegaard influence Murdoch's writing and thinking? What do you think is the most underrated work by Iris? Daniel Read lectures at the University of Kingston (UK). His monograph, Degrees of Evil in Iris Murdoch's Fiction and Philosophy, is due from Palgrave MacMillan later this year.

In this special episode celebrating the Oxford Quartet Miles is joined by Lesley Brown (Somerville College, Oxford) and John Hacker-Wright (University of Guelph, Canada) to discuss the life and work of Philippa Foot, as well as her connections to Anscombe, Midgley and Murdoch. Lesley Brown is Centenary Fellow in Philosophy at Somerville and expert on Ancient Philosophy. She was taught by both Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe and is Foot's literary executor. https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/our-people/lesley-brown/ John Hacker-Wright is a world-leading expert on Foot's work having published 'Philippa Foot's Moral Thought' (Bloomsbury, 2013),Philipp Foot on Goodness and Virtue (Palgrave, 2018) and 'Philippa Foot's Metaethics' (CUP,2021). You can find details of all his work here: https://www.uoguelph.ca/arts/philosophy/people/john-hacker-wright

In this episode Miles is joined by Matthew Congdon (Vanderbilt University, USA) to discuss his new book 'Moral Articulation: On the Development of New Moral Concepts' (Oxford University Press) which is deeply indebted to Murdoch's philosophy. They discuss the limits of moral language, the practical ramifications of rethinking our concepts, connections to the broader humanities and much else besides. Matthew Congdon is a philosopher specializing in ethics, social philosophy, and aesthetics. He writes about emotions, interpersonal recognition, moral change, the aesthetics of interpersonal ethical life, and the intersections of ethics and epistemology. His work on these topics has appeared in The Philosophical Quarterly, Analysis, Philosophy, The European Journal of Philosophy, Episteme, and Philosophical Topics, amongst others. You can find his new book, here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/moral-articulation-9780197691571?cc=it&lang=en&

In this episode Miles is joined Lyra Ekström Lindbäck (Centre for Ethics, Pardubice) to discuss the distinctions and connections between philosophy and literature, and why literature is not philosophy; focusing primarily on the work of Iris Murdoch which is the subject of Lyra's new book. Lyra is a Swedish novelist, literary critic, podcaster and philosopher. She has published six novels and a collection of poetry. Iris Murdoch and the Ancient Quarrel is her first work of philosophy. You can find out more, here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/iris-murdoch-and-the-ancient-quarrel-9781350332935/

In this special episode Miles is join by Dr Leanne Bibby (Teeside University) and Dr Barbara Franchi (University of Durham) to celebrate the life, work and legacy of A.S. Byatt. Byatt was not only a significant novelist and biographer but also a close friend of Iris Murdoch - Byatt wrote the first significant work of criticism of Murdoch's work 'Degrees of Freedom: The Early Novels of Iris Murdoch'. We discuss Byatt's novels, short fiction, criticism, film adaptations and much more. Leanne Bibby is specialises in historical fiction and historiographic metafiction, and the relationship of literary writing to feminist and intellectual cultural histories. She has published research on history, austerity and mythopoeia in A. S. Byatt’s fiction, the impact of women’s literary writing on second-wave feminism, and the capacity of literary writing to archive historical evidence. Her monograph on Byatt is 'A. S. Byatt and Intellectual Women: Fictions, Histories, Myths': https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-08671-7 Barbara Franchi's research focuses on contemporary women's writing and historical fiction, with a special focus on how echoes of Empire reverberate in them. In particular, she is currently working on two main strands of research: ecocriticism and cultural memory in A. S. Byatt and Sarah Moss, and the sea as a signifier of imperial memory in contemporary historical fiction by British and postcolonial writers. Recent publications pertaining to the first strand include an article for The Journal of the Short Story in English (2022) and a chapter in A. S. Byatt and the Wonder Tale (ed. Alexandra Cheira, Cambridge Scholars 2022), both exploring material feminism, environmental questions, and national memory in Byatt's short stories. You can find an article by Barbara on Byatt here: https://theconversation.com/how-a-s-byatts-northern-identity-and-anger-over-climate-change-informed-her-fiction-218400

In this episode Miles is joined by Dr Lucy Oulton, Dr Frances White and Prof. Anne Rowe - all from the University of Chichester - to revisit Murdoch's first novel, Under the Net. The first ever Murdoch Podcast, with the same line-up, discussed the novel way back in 2020 (do listen to that episode before this one if you haven't before) and the team were delighted to return to it again to cover themes and ideas we didn't have time for.

In this episode Miles talks to Dr Frances White (University of Chichester) about her new book, Iris Murdoch and Remorse: Past Forgiving? They cover key Murdoch novels, philosophy, psychoanalysis, her play 'The One Alone', and connections with post-war history. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-43013-8 Frances White is a Visiting Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester, editor of the Iris Murdoch Review, and Writer in Residence at Kingston University Writing School. She has published widely on Iris Murdoch and other writers. Her prize-winning biography Becoming Iris Murdoch was published in 2014 and her monograph, Iris Murdoch and Remorse: Beyond Forgiving? was published in 2023. She is Series Co-Editor of ‘Iris Murdoch Today’ with Palgrave Macmillan.

Much of our conception of the relationship between Iris Murdoch and John Bayley, happily married for over forty years, comes from Bayley’s memoirs, and the Oscar-winning film adaptation of the first, Iris (2001). But what do we know of their life together outside of their public appearances and international travel? In this lecture Miles Leeson will explore their intellectual relationship from their first meeting in 1955, through to John resuming his novel writing with his ‘Alice’ trilogy in the 1990s. Murdoch’s achievements are very well known, of course: John’s stretched well beyond memoir and fiction writing; his first major publication, the poem ‘Eldorado’, won the Newdigate Prize in 1951, and he was acclaimed as a book reviewer and essayist for The New York Times and many other journals and newspapers. As an expert on Austen, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Goethe and many others – indeed many of Iris’s favourite writers – their mutually enriching conversations arguably created a synergy or minds in simpatico. This lecture will attempt to trace these confluences and suggest ways of approaching their work in tandem. This lecture was given by Dr Miles Leeson on 15th July, 2024.

In this episode Miles is joined by Gary Browning (Oxford Brookes, UK) to discuss his new book, Iris Murdoch and the Political. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/iris-murdoch-and-the-political-9780192844989?cc=sy&lang=en& Gary Browning is Emeritus Professor of Political Thought at Oxford Brookes University. Gary has worked at Oxford Brookes University since 1997, first as a Lecturer and then a Professor. He was Associate Dean, 2010-20,, set up a series of Think Human Festivals, performing stand-up at the first and staging an event on Iris Murdoch and Listening in 2020. He was a member of the Executive of the Political Studies Association 1999-2005, editor of the journals, Politics and Contemporary Political Theory between 2000 and 2015, served as a member of the Council of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 1997-2020, co-organized the Oxford Conference for Political Thought for BIAPT 2015-2022, and was a member of the REF Panel of the UK, 2020. He has published 16 books, and over 70 articles and essays on major thinkers and thinkers in political thought.

In this episode Miles is joined by Matt Congdon (Vanderbilt, USA), Sam Filby, (Northwestern, USA) and Francey Russell (Columbia, USA) to consider Murdoch's moral psychology. They discuss Murdoch's essay 'Vision and Choice in Morality' and 'On 'God' and 'Good''- you can find both in 'Existentialists and Mystics'. Also recommended is this article by Cora Diamond: https://www.abc.net.au/religion/cora-diamond-picture-of-the-soul-the-moral-psychology-of-iris-m/11316086 Matt Congdon is a philosopher at the University of Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee specializing in ethics, social philosophy, and aesthetics. He writes about emotions, interpersonal recognition, moral change, the aesthetics of interpersonal ethical life, and the intersections of ethics and epistemology. His work on these topics has appeared in The Philosophical Quarterly, Analysis, Philosophy, The European Journal of Philosophy, Episteme, and Philosophical Topics, amongst others. His book, Moral Articulation: On the Development of New Moral Concepts appeared in November 2023 with Oxford University Press and you can hear him discussing it on a previous podcast so check that out if you’ve not already listened in. He is currently working on two new book projects: one on the aesthetic dimensions of interpersonal ethical life and one on the philosophy of Iris Murdoch. He is also working on essays on the non-propositional rationality of emotions, Iris Murdoch, and struggles for recognition. Francey Russell is Assistant Professor of philosophy at the University of Columbia, New York and works on issues in moral psychology and ethics broadly construed, often overlapping with topics in social philosophy and aesthetics, and drawing from contemporary and historical sources. She works mostly on Kant and Freud, but also Nietzsche and Cavell. She is writing a book on the concept of self-opacity and its significance for philosophical accounts of agency and moral psychology. She also writes film criticism, and is working on a project on cinematic aesthetics in genre films as well as the recent article in The Philosophical Quarterly ‘Moral Psychology as a Soul Picture’, which illuminates Murdoch thinking in this very area. Sam Filby is currently working on his PhD thesis on Murdoch at Northwestern University, Chicago. His work focuses on Murdoch’s aesthetics and – handily for this podcast – moral psychology and he’s recently presented his work at the Sorbonne in Paris and, a few weeks ago, here at the University of Chichester.

In this episode Miles is joined by Prof. Larry Blum (U-Mass, USA) to discuss the intellectual and personal connections between Iris and Dorothy Emmet. This follows on from a previous episode on Emmet, which you can find in the Podcast archive. Professor Lawrence Blum is Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education and Professor of Philosophy. His scholarly interests are in race theory, moral philosophy, moral psychology, moral education, multiculturalism, social and political philosophy, philosophy of education, the philosophy of Simone Weil, philosophy and the Holocaust, and ethics and race in film. You can find his Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy Entry on Murdoch here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/murdoch/ You can find materials on the Oxford Quartet, as well as Dorothy Emmet, here: https://www.womeninparenthesis.co.uk/

In this episode Miles is joined by Dr Frances White (University of Chichester) and Liz Whittome (Former Chief and Principal Examiner of English for Cambridge Examinations) to discuss dogs in Murdoch's Fiction. The episode covers Under the Net, The Sandcastle, The Nice and the Good, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, The Green Knight and The Philosopher's Pupil in some depth as well as discussing other Murdoch novels. You can buy Chris Boddington's 'Iris Murdoch's People A-Z' via the society website, here: https://irismurdochsociety.org.uk/product/iris-murdoch-people-a-to-z/

In this episode Miles is joined by Robert Cremins (University of Houston, Texas) and Daniel Read (Kingston University) to celebrate the anniversary of Murdoch's Whitbread Award-winning novel from 1974. They cover the culture of the 1970s, trauma, childhood, cruelty, black humour, love triangles, links to other writers, links to other novels by Murdoch and much more. Robert is a writer and Senior Lecturer in the Honours College at the University of Houston, and the Faculty Director of Creative Works. A novelist, short story writer and literary critic, Robert has got a lifelong love of Murdoch’s fiction. He is currently working on next year’s North American special edition of the Iris Murdoch Review which will be published in the Autumn of 2025. Daniel Read lectures at the University of Kingston and his monograph, Degrees of Evil in Iris Murdoch's Fiction and Philosophy, is due from Palgrave MacMillan in early 2025.

This Keynote Lecture was given at the Eleventh International Iris Murdoch Conference at Chichester on the 31st August, 2024. Justin is Professor of Philosophy at Brown, USA. There are philosophers who have said that late 20th century philosophical works do not need commentaries in the way that the writings of Plato and Aristotle, or Kant and Hegel do. Russell and Strawson, or Kripke and Lewis — and others at least in the English-speaking academic world — have committed themselves so much to clarity and a kind of professional *limitation* that they will have followers and opponents, but won’t need expository or explanatory commentary. But Wittgenstein is evidently an exception and so, I think, is Murdoch. What makes philosophical commentary valuable when it is? What kinds of work does it, or should it, do? Which kind of institutional structures promote one kind of writing and which another? And what kind of exception is Murdoch? These are questions, I think, worth exploring.

In this episode Miles is joined by Daniel Read (University of Kingston) to discuss his new book, 'Degrees of Evil in Iris Murdoch's Fiction and Philosophy'. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-75841-6 We range across all of her published work - in literature, fiction and theology - and ask why the nature of evil obsessed her throughout her career.

In this episode Miles is joined by Ian D'alton (Trinity College, Dublin) and Frances White (University of Chichester) to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Murdoch's ninth novel, The Red and The Green. Ian is a visiting research fellow in the Centre for Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College, Dublin, and his most recent work is Southern Irish Protestants: Histories, Lives and Literatures was published just a few months ago. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Southern-Irish-Protestants-Histories-Literature/dp/1916742505 Frances is a Visiting Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester, editor of the Iris Murdoch Review, and Writer in Residence at Kingston University Writing School. Her prize-winning biography Becoming Iris Murdoch was published in 2014 (Kingston University Press) and her monograph, Iris Murdoch and Remorse: Beyond Forgiving? was published in 2024 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-43013-8 You can find an excellent article on Murdoch and Ireland by Frances White and Gillian Dooley here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0013838X.2019.1672449

The first podcast from the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester hosted by the Director, Miles Leeson. Guests include Visiting Professor Anne Rowe, Visiting Fellow Frances White, and researcher Lucy Oulton.

A talk at the Iris Murdoch Research Centre on the 20th anniversary of her death in 2019.

This podcast discusses 'Murdochland' - the locations, characters, and buildings that inhabit Murdoch's novels: London is central. Guests are Chris Boddington, author of 'Iris Murdoch A-Z' - a major reference work to all her characters, locations, and so much more ; James Jefferies, creator of irismurdoch.info - an online site dedicated to Murdoch's London, and Prof Anne Rowe co-author of 'Sacred Space, Beloved City: Iris Murdoch's London' and many other works on Murdoch. Anne's Book: www.cambridgescholars.com/sacred-space-beloved-city-15 Chris' Book here: https://murdochspeople.com/ James Website: https://irismurdoch.info

In this podcast Miles Leeson is joined by three renowned experts on Murdoch's philosophy; Justin Broackes (Brown University, USA), editor of 'Iris Murdoch, Philosopher' and author of a forthcoming commentary on SOG; Hannah Marije Altorf (St. Mary's, London) author of 'Iris Murdoch and the Art of Imagining' and translator of the Dutch edition of SOG, and Mark Hopwood (Sewanee, University of the South, USA), editor of the forthcoming'The Murdochian Mind'. You can find 'Existentialists and Mystics' here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0140264922/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tu00_p1_i6 Justin's Collection: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/iris-murdoch-philosopher-9780198701200?lang=en&cc=gb Hannah's Book: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/iris-murdoch-and-the-art-of-imagining-9780826497574/ Mark's Work: https://www.sewanee.edu/academics/philosophy/facstaff/hopwood.php

In 2017 A.N. Wilson was a guest at the Iris Murdoch Conference at Chichester. Here he is, in interview with Miles Leeson, reflecting on 'Iris Murdoch: As I Knew Her' 15 years after publication. If you want the full interview with audience questions and responses you can find it in this book. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Iris-Murdoch-Celebration-Miles-Leeson/dp/191297200X If you'd like a copy at a discount please email: ims@chi.ac.uk Andrew's book is here: https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/a-n-wilson/iris-murdoch-biography/GOR004674835

In this episode Miles is joined by Lucy Bolton (Queen Mary, University of London), Rebecca Moden (University of Chichester), and Anne Rowe (Chichester, and Kingston University) to discuss how Murdoch's use of imagery works in the novels, her inspirations, her relationship with painters and paintings, and how her philosophy can be brought to bear on the cinema and film-philosophy. Lucy's Book: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-contemporary-cinema-and-the-philosophy-of-iris-murdoch.html Link to Vogue Article: https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/vogue-archive-article-iris-murdoch Anne's Book: https://mellenpress.com/book/Visual-Arts-and-the-Novels-of-Iris-Murdoch/4673/ Special Edition of the Iris Murdoch Review No. 8 on the Visual Arts (edited by Lucy, work by Anne and Rebecca)freely available here: https://www.chi.ac.uk/humanities/public-humanities/literary-and-cultural-narrative/iris-murdoch-research-centre/iris-murdoch-review Links to images mentioned: Phillip's Portrait of Iris: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw07718/Iris-Murdoch Bronzino: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/bronzino-an-allegory-with-venus-and-cupid Gainsborough: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/thomas-gainsborough-the-painters-daughters-chasing-a-butterfly Rublev: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(Andrei_Rublev)

My guests on this podcast are Dr Frances White, Deputy Director of the IMRC at Chichester and author of the short biography 'Becoming Iris Murdoch', Fr Mark Patrick Hederman Former Abbott of Glenstall Abbey in Ireland and author of two works with a focus on Murdoch (see below), and James Marriott, Deputy Books Editor of The Times. Frances Book: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Becoming_Iris_Murdoch.html?id=9APuoQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y Mark Patrick's Books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Haunted-Inkwell-Art-Our-Future/dp/1856073475 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Opal-Pearl-Towards-Gyroscopic-Ethics/dp/178218306X/ref=sr_1_12?dchild=1&qid=1592437559&refinements=p_27%3AMark+Patrick+Hederman&s=books&sr=1-12&text=Mark+Patrick+Hederman James' Webpage at The Times: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/profile/james-marriott?page=1

In 2016 Frances White (who you can also hear on the recent podcast) joined me at Chichester to discuss 'The Bell' with my students.

Joining Miles in this special podcast on Brigid Brophy's life and work are Gerri Kimber, co-editor of the recent collection 'Brigid Brophy: Avant-Garde Writer, Critic, Activist'; Jonathan Gibbs, academic and novelist (whose latest novel 'The Large Door' is directly inspired by Brophy's 'The Snow Ball'); and Brophy's daughter, Kate Levey. Kate's Website: www.brigidbrophy.com Gerri's co-edited collection: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-brigid-brophy.html Jonathan's Novel: https://www.boilerhouse.press/product-page/the-large-door You can also listen to a 'Backlisted' Podcast on 'The Snow Ball' (featuring Jonathan) here: https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/33-brigid-brophy-the-snow-ball

Joining me to discuss Murdoch and Politics are Gary Browning (Oxford Brookes), author of 'Why Iris Murdoch Matters', Lesley Jamieson (Queen's University, Canada)who is conducting research into Murdoch's thought in the 1950s, and Vic Seidler (Goldsmiths, London) author of numerous works on sociology and politics. Gary's Book: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/why-iris-murdoch-matters-9781472574473/ Lesley's Latest Research: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9752.12416 Vic's latest book: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/making-sense-of-brexit

Join me and my guest Anne Rowe as she guides us around London's National Gallery! We'll be stopping off at four paintings that appear in her novels: Gainsborough's portrait of his two daughters from 'The Bell' https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/thomas-gainsborough-the-painters-daughters-chasing-a-butterfly Bronzino's 'Allegory with Venus and Cupid' from 'The Nice and the Good'. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/bronzino-an-allegory-with-venus-and-cupid Giorgione's 'Il Tramonto' from 'The Sacred and Profane Love Machine' https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/giorgione-il-tramonto-the-sunset Titian's 'The Death of Acteon' from 'Henry and Cato' https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/titian-the-death-of-actaeon Anne is the world's leading Murdoch scholar, and her particular interest is Murdoch and the Visual Arts. Her books mentioned in the podcast can be found here: 'Iris Murdoch' https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/51725/ 'Sacred Space, Beloved City' https://www.cambridgescholars.com/sacred-space-beloved-city-15 Take a virtual tour here: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/virtual-tours

Joining Miles to discuss 'A Word Child' are Professor Rob Hardy from Henan Normal University, China; Dr Daniel read from Kingston University, and Maria Peacock from the Research Centre at Chichester.

Joining me to discuss Iris and Swimming are Natasha Alden from the University of Aberystwyth, Hannah Marije from St Mary's University of London, and Lucy Oulton from the research Centre at Chichester. We discuss her life writing, no-fiction, philosophy, and of course her fiction including: Under the Net The Bell The Sea, The Sea The Unicorn A Fairly Honourable Defeat The Philosopher's Pupil

In this interview, first broadcast on the BBC in 1977, Murdoch discusses her work in both philosophy and literature with Bryan Magee. An excellent companion piece, by the Murdochian scholar Gillian Dooley, can be found here: https://www.abc.net.au/religion/iris-murdoch-and-her-philosophy-of-fiction/11889672

Maureen reflects on her time studying with Iris Murdoch (and others) at St Anne's College Oxford in the late 1950s, and reflects on the effect that it had on her later career as an academic. Interviewed by Miles Leeson from the IMRC, Chichester.

Joining me to present a general introduction to Murdoch's life and work are Prof. Cheryl Bove (Ball State University, USA), Prof. Avril Horner (Kingston University, UK), and Kieran Setiya (MIT, USA). In this podcast we introduce each facet of Murdoch's life and work - her biography, fiction, philosophy, life writing, her love of London, and more. You can discover more via these links: Avril's Co-edited collection of Murdoch's letters: https://www.psbooks.co.uk/Living-on-Paper-9780701187057 Cheryl's book 'Understanding Iris Murdoch': https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&ref=bf_s2_a1_t1_1&qi=cw5b7Q6.xXFowro,ke3OyG,UAjs_1497963026_1:3:9&bq=author%3Dcheryl%2520browning%2520bove%26title%3Dunderstanding%2520iris%2520murdoch Kieran's Website: http://www.ksetiya.net/ with a link to his own '5 Questions' Podcast

In this episode, Miles is joined by Ian D'Alton (Trinity College, Dublin), Gillian Dooley (Flinders University Australia) and Frances White (IMRC, Chichester) to discuss Iris' Irishness. Areas covered include her biography and links with Irish culture, along with the novels 'The Unicorn', 'The Red and the Green', and her only short story 'Something Special'. Ian's article on her Irishness: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/in-praise-of-iris-murdoch-by-ian-d-alton-1.2235736 Gillian's New work: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030189662 Frances' biography: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Becoming-Iris-Murdoch-Frances-White/dp/1899999604/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=white+iris+murdoch&qid=1602192322&sr=8-2

This recording from 2019 features Miles Leeson and Anne Rowe, both from the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester, discussing Murdoch's novel 'The Unicorn'.

Joining Miles on the podcast are Peter J. Conradi FRSL, author of the authorised biography, 'Iris Murdoch: A Life', as well as his own memoir 'Family Business' (2019); the novelist Garth Greenwell, author of 'What Belongs to You' and 'Cleanness' (2020); and the literary critic and former Deputy Director of PEN, Catherine Taylor. Peter's Memoir: https://www.serenbooks.com/productdisplay/family-business-memoir Garth's New Novel: https://www.waterstones.com/book/cleanness/garth-greenwell/9781509874637 Catherine's Latest work in the Times Literary Supplement: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/reduced-to-body-parts/

George Steiner commented in Existentialists and Mystics that Iris Murdoch’s writings present ‘[l]uminous shades of Blake’s “holiness of the minute particular”’. This lecture explores some of the ways in which Murdoch engages with this oft-maligned Romantic visionary, whose works are referenced in her fiction, her letters and her philosophy. Blake and Murdoch share a dialectical moral vision that suggests the necessity for revolutionary violence, seeks an acknowledgement of evil, and invites the individual to attend to the world around them. Dr Daniel Read completed his doctoral studies at Kingston University. This lecture was given at the University of Chichester in February, 2018.

Joining me to discuss Iris Murdoch and feminism are Lucy Bolton, a film scholar from Queen Mary, University of London; Wendy Jones Nakanishi a literary scholar recently retired from Shikoku Gakuin University, Japan; and the artist and scholar Carol Sommer. Lucy's Book on Iris Murdoch and Film-Philosophy: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-contemporary-cinema-and-the-philosophy-of-iris-murdoch.html Carol's Book 'Cartography for Girls': https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/7203743-cartography-for-girls-an-a-z-of-orientations-ident

In this lecture Rob Hardy (Emeritus, Henan Normal University, China) explores the consequences of two statements: (1) that Iris Murdoch was a shaman in the sense that Ted Hughes said that Shakespeare and T.S Eliot were, and (2) that Murdoch’s shamanism was deeply linked to the intertextuality of her fiction.

In this podcast I'm joined by Prof Peter J. Conradi, Iris Murdoch's official biographer, to celebrate his own memoir, 'Family business', and to reflect on his biography of Iris, 'Iris Murdoch: A Life', twenty years after publication. He tells us about his relationship with Iris, her life, work and relationships, her unpublished novel 'Jerusalem', what he left unsaid until 'Family Business' (the final third of which is dedicated to her) and much more! You can buy 'Family Business' at a discounted price here until the end of February 2020: https://www.serenbooks.com/productdisplay/family-business-memoir using the code 'MURDOCH' at checkout. The article by Leo Robson that Peter refers to can be found here: https://www.newstatesman.com/iris-murdoch-novels-reissued-criticism-biography-100-years

In this episode Miles is (virtually) in the Murdoch collection at the Kingston University Archives; and joined by the Head Archivist, Dayna Miller, transcriber Rachel Hirschler, and one of the founders of the archive, Prof. Anne Rowe (Chichester and Kingston). We cover the letters, journals, links between novels and unpublished work, poetry, artwork, and much more. To ask Dayna a question, or to book a visit, simply email: archives@kingston.ac.uk Find the archive here: https://www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kingston-school-of-art/research-and-innovation/iris-murdoch/ Back Issues of the Review (for free!) here: https://irismurdochsociety.org.uk/the-review/

Joining me to discuss William Golding, Doris Lessing and Muriel Spark in relation to their own work (and Iris!) are James Bailey (University of Sheffield), Nicola Presley (University of Bath Spa), and Nonia Williams (University of East Anglia). We cover the novels, of course, but also politics, feminism, WW2, the influence of travel, mysticism and much more! James' new book on Spark: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-muriel-spark-s-early-fiction.html Nonia's recent Edited Collection: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-british-avant-garde-fiction-of-the-1960s.html Nicola's Work: https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/our-people/nicola-presley/ The William Golding Website: https://william-golding.co.uk/

In this podcast I'm joined by Gillian Dooley (Flinders University, Australia) and Elin Svenneby to discuss Murdoch, music and singing. Along the way we cover most of the novels, consider how the philosophy of Plato, Schopenhauer and Weil might be connected to her thoughts about this artform, and discuss natural sounds and silence. Gillian's latest book: https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783030189662 Elin's Book: https://www.haugenbok.no/iris-murdochs-velvalgte-ord/svenneby-elin/9788274191662