The Iris Murdoch Society podcast

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 we discuss Murdoch’s conceptualisation of virtue and what it might mean to be virtuous. We’ll range across her philosophy, of course, but we’ll also have time to visit her fiction and consider if she embeds some of her ideas about virtue into her novels. Joining Miles to discuss this fascinating topic is Tony Milligan. Tony is a Research Fellow in Philosophy of Ethics in the Theology and Religious Studies at Kings College, University of London. And his current research, as part of the KCL (China) team and the University of Manchester (Russia) team within the Cosmological Visionaries project, takes in the ethical aspects of dialogue building between local scientists, indigenous peoples and national minorities in Russia and China in the face of climate change. The key theme uniting his broader areas of research is otherness and our shared future. This works its way into various publications on Space (other places), philosophy of love (other people), and animals (other creatures). Tony is also an Affiliate of the Lau China Institute. For many years he’s been fascinated by Murdoch’s philosophy, indeed his PhD thesis at the University of Glasgow was titled 'Iris Murdoch’s Romantic Platonism' and he’s gone on to publish widely on her work.

In this lecture Miles Leeson, Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester, discusses Murdoch’s reception by her contemporaries and look at the lighter side of how she was lampooned, both directly and indirectly, in the work of H.E. Bates, Malcolm Bradbury, Brigid Brophy, Barbara Pym and Ian McEwan, as well as the reception of her work by Philip Larkin and Monica Jones. Whilst a good deal of this was affectionate, and some even complementary, there was also a streak of jealousy and cruelty present. As Murdoch grew in popularity, and as a public intellectual figure, this became commonplace and is part of the mythic figure of ‘Iris’ that was played out in the 2001 film, but has now has begun to fade from the public imagination. Miles’s lecture asks what it might mean for us to admire her work today in the light of these texts.

Have you always thought you could do with some expert guidance when reading Iris’s philosophy? Well help is at hand! This episode marks the start of a new mini-series of episodes where we’ll be reading Iris’s collected essay collection – Existentialists and Mystics – with a team of excellent academics and seasoned readers, and you can join us for the experience! Each episode will focus on a small number of essays – or perhaps just one essay if it is substantial in length – and explore exactly what Murdoch was up to and how the essay fits in with her overall vision. We’ll keep in roughly chronological order, starting with her work from the 1950s and ending up in the mid-1980s with her two Platonic dialogues. Although Existentialists and Mystics doesn’t contain all of her published philosophy it’s a great place to start so, if you’ve not got a copy, you can pick one up very reasonably second-hand via this link: https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?isbn=9780140264920&st=xl&ac=qr In this episode we’re starting out with her earliest material on Existentialism – closely reading ‘The Existentialist Hero’ and ‘The Novelist as Metaphysician’ as well as her review of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity – all from 1950. The two essays were originally given as talks on BBC Radio’s The Third Programme; and are the groundwork for her first monograph, Sartre: Romantic Rationalist that would be published just a few years later in 1953. Joining Miles is Sam Filby, currently working on his PhD thesis on Murdoch at Northwestern University, Chicago; and the current recipient of the BSH research fund. His work focuses on Murdoch’s aesthetics and moral psychology

In this episode Miles is joined by joined by Mark Hopwood, Associate Professor of Philosophy, from the University of Sewanee, USA to discuss his new book – which has just been published – The Moral Philosophy of Iris Murdoch. This is his first monograph since he published the co-edited volume that he’s perhaps best known for in Murdoch circles, the magisterial Murdochian Mind in 2022. Both books published by Routledge. https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Moral-Philosophy-of-Iris-Murdoch-by-Mark-Hopwood/9780367819576 Examining the role of vision, imagination, love, goodness, and transcendence in Murdoch's work, The Moral Philosophy of Iris Murdoch presents a compelling and original argument that she is one of the major moral philosophers of the twentieth century.

In this episode Miles is joined by Prof. Bridget Clarke (University of Montana) to discuss her new book, entitled ‘Iris Murdoch’ in the Cambridge Elements, Elements on Women in the History of Philosophy series from Cambridge University Press. https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Iris-Murdoch-by-Bridget-Clarke/9781009358149 Bridget is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Montana and her research interests include the History of Ethics, Moral Psychology and, of course, Iris Murdoch, who she has been working on for the past twenty years or more. This new book, however, is her first monograph dedicated solely to Murdoch work. To access Iris Murdoch's Review of Dr Zhivago - mentioned at the end of the podcast - use this link: https://mailadminchiac-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/m_leeson_chi_ac_uk/ESChvUwQ5xpIiacFzothi7QB8eT3VRQavDZRT83RCUuvVg?e=FEEhQe

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

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.