For nearly 50 years, the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch wrote prolifically, establishing herself as one of the great British fiction writers of the twentieth century. Novelists A.S. Byatt, Bidisha and Philip Hensher, all of them powerfully influenced by Iris Murdoch, reconsider her standing as a writer. Chaired by Anne Chisholm.

Iris Murdoch Revisited (A.S. Byatt, Bidisha, Philip Hensher)

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/

Murdoch In Translation Podcast

For the first time, a selection of Iris Murdoch’s most interesting and important letters has been collected together to give us a full, living portrait of one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers and thinkers. Including letters to well-known literary figures and philosophers such as Raymond Queneau, Michael Oakenshott, Elias Canetti, Philippa Foot and Brigid Brophy, Living on Paper is the most significant publication about Murdoch since the wave of books published in the wake of her death.

The editors Anne Rowe and Avril Horner discuss how the letters – written between 1934, when Murdoch was a school girl, and 1995, near the end of her writing career – reveal Murdoch’s complex personal life and sexual identity, as well as showing a great mind at work. Gradually, we see the ways in which Murdoch’s complicated emotional life fed into her novels’ plots and characters.

Photo of Murdoch Iris credit Jill Krementz

Iris Murdoch Letters 24 November 2015

The Iris Murdoch Society exists to promote her work, further her philosophical vision, and enhance and extend knowledge. You can find our website here: https://irismurdochsociety.org.uk/
You can find us on Twitter -  https://twitter.com/IrisMurdoch
On Facebook -  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2213699051
And at Chichester University: https://www.chi.ac.uk/humanities/public-humanities/literary-and-cultural-narrative/iris-murdoch-research-centre/iris-murdoch-society

Murdoch In Translation Podcast

The Iris Murdoch Podcast

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