The Iris Murdoch Society podcast

Iris Murdoch's World Cup Podcast

The Iris Murdoch Society podcast

Show Notes

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.

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In this episode Miles is joined by Justin Broackes (Brown, USA) and Matt Dougherty (CEU, Vienna) to discuss the influence of Martin Heidegger on Murdoch's philosophy, and Murdoch's forthcoming work on Heidegger which has been edited by Justin.

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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.

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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.

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