The Iris Murdoch Society podcast

In this episode Miles is joined by Lesley Chamberlain to discuss her newly-published monograph, 'Undoing the Moral Empire: Moral Philosophy in post-War Britain'...

In this episode we’re celebrating the publication of The Oxford University Socratic Club, 1942-1972: A Life, published by Bloomsbury in the UK today...

In this episode Miles discusses the mid-twentieth century gothic novel with a particular focus on Daphne du Maurier, Barbara Comyns and, of course, Iris Murdoch. An enduring subject of fascination, the gothic novel has...

In this episode Miles is joined by Jil Evans and Charles Taliaferro (St. Olaf College, Minnesota, USA) to discuss their new book, 'Iris Murdoch and the Transcendent'. We cover love, ethics, mora illumination, gender...

In this episode Miles is joined by Cathy Mason (Central European University, Vienna) to discuss her new book, 'Iris Murdoch's Moral Philosophy: Reframing the True, the Real, and the Good'...

In this episode we are returning to our close reading of the collection Existentialists and Mystics. For the third podcast of our mini-series, we’ll be discussing Murdoch's review of Gabriel Marcel’s ‘The Image of Mind’...

In this 75th Episode Special, Miles is joined by Daniel Read (Kingston University, UK) to answer questions from the Iris Murdoch Society and via the social media channels. You can find out much more, and join the...

In this lecture, given on Monday 15th December 2025, Dr Lucy Oulton (University of Chichester), Murdoch's enduring relationship with the figure of Peter Pan is discussed: her talk is titled '‘An Ousted Gabriel’: Iris...

In this episode Miles is joined by Frances White and Robert Cremins - both from the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester - to discuss Murdoch's final novel, Jackson's Dilemma. Frances is the...

In this episode Miles is joined by Anne Rowe (University of Chichester/Kingston), Rachel Hirschler (Kinston University) and Rosanna Hilyard (Chatto & Windus) to celebrate the publication of 'Poems from An Attic...

In this episode Miles talks to Andrea Delaune (University of Canterbury, New Zealand) about her new book, 'Iris Murdoch and Early Childhood Education: Enhancing Attention and Moral Vision in Pedagogy' (Routledge, 2025)...

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...

Welcome to a new season of the Iris Murdoch Podcast! In this episode we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of Murdoch very best novels, and one of the six first-person male narrated novels, A...

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...

In this second episode focused on Existentialists and Mystics we’ll be reading two essays – ‘Thinking and Language’ and ‘Nostalgia for the Particular’ – together. If you’ve yet to listen to our prior episode on Murdoch...