The Iris Murdoch Society podcast

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 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.

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 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).

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.