The Iris Murdoch Society podcast Iris Murdoch Society

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 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 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 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 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.

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).