The Iris Murdoch Society podcast

In this episode Miles is joined by Rebecca Moden (Birmingham Newman University, UK) to discuss the new exhibition at the University of Chichester, Iris Murdoch among the Artists. Drawing on newly-discovered artworks by Murdoch, those by her friends, students and collaborators, and new works by three contemporary British artists responding to her fiction and philosophy, the exhibition runs until the 10th December.

They discuss Murdoch's early artistic work, the biographical links to her paintings, her fiction and philosophical work. In short, how these new works fit in to the previously understood life of Iris Murdoch.

Rebecca lectures at Birmingham Newman and is a Research Associate at the Iris Murdoch Research Center at the University of Chichester where she gained her PhD. She is currently writing 'Iris Murdoch and Artists: Visions of the Real' for the Iris Murdoch Today series at Palgrave Macmillan.

In this Birthday Lecture Daniel Read (Kingston University, UK) discusses Murdoch's dramatic work and the connections to her life, fiction and philosophy. Although lesser-known, Read makes the case that her dramatic work needs to be reassessed in the light of new materials and biographical insights.

In this episode Miles and his guests kick-off a fantasy world cup featuring all of Murdoch's novels.

Murdoch’s novels will be separated into seven groups – we’ve added in the short story ‘Something Special’ and the recently published ‘Poems from an Attic’ to make the numbers works – and each day following the release of the podcast they’ll be a window of 24 hours for you to vote for your favourite via Facebook and X (Bluesky doesn't have a poll function, sadly) The top two works from each group go through, with two third-placed works going through as ‘lucky losers’ to the round of 16. There will then be knock-out stages ending up in the final, and even a 3rd/4th place play-off.

Who will win? Who will end up missing out? And what will be over or underrated? The choice will be up to you!

Joining me to discuss the groups, permutations, and the runners and riders are James Jefferies, created of irismurdoch.info and Liz Dexter, blogger extraordinaire and author of Iris Murdoch and the Common Reader.

In this episode Miles is joined by Lesley Chamberlain to discuss her newly-published monograph, 'Undoing the Moral Empire: Moral Philosophy in post-War Britain'.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/undoing-the-moral-empire-9781350457751/

After 1945, Britain wanted to be a new country.

The authority of state and church were giving way, the Empire was dismantled, and it was no longer clear who was leading whom in matters of morals. Individuals were left to reinvent their ethical lives anew.

The lives and works of the philosophers discussed in this book were caught up this sea-change. Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch, Richard Wollheim, Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre were all characters in search of a moral England, with a particular vision of the good society. From communitarianism to swinging Sixties' individualism, and radical theories of art – which understood questions of ambiguity, error and forgiveness more than the state ever could – this is the story of their sometimes convergent but often discrepant ideas on ethical life in the second half of the twentieth century.

Undoing the Moral Empire is a work of biography, social history and the history of ideas that masterfully reconstructs the shifting sentiments of the post-war era, reconfiguring enduringly relevant questions of freedom, virtue, and society.

Lesley is an author, literary critics and translator whose work has focused on Rilke, Nietzsche, German philosophy, Conservative Modern Russia, Heidegger, Van Gogh, Lenin, Freud, travel writing, cuisine in Russia and Poland, journalism and fiction – twelve books in all. She’s also the author of the forthcoming chapter on Murdoch and Russian Literature in the Oxford Handbook of Iris Murdoch. This new book marks a homecoming for Lesley. You can find out much more about her work at her website:

http://lesleychamberlain.co.uk/

In this episode we’re celebrating the publication of The Oxford University Socratic Club, 1942-1972: A Life, published by Bloomsbury in the UK today!

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Oxford-University-Socratic-Club-1942-1972-by-Jim-Stockton/9781666932249

Jim is Lecture Emeritus in Philosophy at Boise State University, Idaho where his interests and teaching include: Medieval Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy and Film, and the History of Ideas.

https://www.boisestate.edu/philosophy/jstockton/