The Iris Murdoch Society podcast

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.

Gillian Dooley and Daniel Read join the podcast to celebrate the Twentieth Anniversary of 'From a Tiny Corner in the House of Fiction' and discuss unpublished interview material. They highlight the challenges in compiling interviews, obtaining copyright permission, and finding a publisher. They also explore the selection process for interviews and the friction between a framework and accessibility in Murdoch's work. They reflect on the influential book 'From a Tiny Corner in the House of Fiction'.

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 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/

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

Join Gillian Dooley, Jan Skinner, and Frances White as they explore the influence of Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf on Iris Murdoch's thought and writing. Topics covered include the connections between Austen and Murdoch, Murdoch's changing views on Woolf, consciousness and morality in their works, the theme of death and grief, Murdoch's engagement with fiction as a philosopher, and recommendations of Murdoch's novels.

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.

A celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Iris Murdoch's 'The Black Prince'. Topics include the novel's emotional pull, exploration of moral and philosophical perspectives, humor, potential for adaptation, unique structure, author's fast writing process, philosophical ideas, character dynamics, use of comedy and landmarks as symbols, and the importance of the author and the reader.

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 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.