The Iris Murdoch Society podcast

In this episode Miles discusses Murdoch's eighteenth novel, Henry and Cato, on the 50th anniversary of its publication.

Joining him are James Bowen (Oxford University) and Frances White (Chichester University).

James is currently completing his PhD thesis at Oxford which considers the processes and criteria by which mid-century authors fall in and out of critical and/or popular favour. Examining the reception histories of a range of authors, focusing primarily on C.P. Snow, Iris Murdoch, John Fowles and William Golding, he advances the contention that central to their rising and falling cultural prominence is their relationship to a conception of the ethical role of fiction.

https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/people/james-bowen

Frances is the Deputy Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Center here at Chichester, the author of Iris Murdoch and Remorse, editor of the Iris Murdoch Review and many other works including the forthcoming Iris Murdoch Handbook from Oxford University Press.

In this episode Miles is joined by Elizabeth Whittome to discuss the profound influence Shakespeare had on the fiction, poetry and philosophy of Iris Murdoch. The conversation ranges widely across Murdoch's life and work, with special attention paid to her novels of the 1970s, including The Black Prince and The Sea, The Sea.

Liz is currently writing Iris Murdoch and Shakespeare for the Iris Murdoch Today series with Palgrave Macmillan and was for many years the Chief and Principal Examiner of English for Cambridge Examinations. She has published several books on studying English at A Level with Cambridge University Press.

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.