Selfy Stories

In this episode, we discuss the powerful, magisterial closing pages of Annie Ernaux’s The Years (pp.182-225) alongside philosophical work in progress by Alice Harberd, one of our hosts. In this paper, Alice considers various ‘narrative’ theories of the self, and argues that, when it comes to the articulation of a sense of self, ‘narrativity is a choice’. We examine Ernaux’s intertwining of persona...

In this episode, we discuss the experience and the representation of the self in time. We consider philosophical approaches to the question of personal change, focusing on a paper by Marya Schechtman entitled ‘Glad it Happened: Personal Identity and Ethical Depth’. Is the self diachronic, extending over time? Or is it episodic, identical with itself only for short periods? For Schechtman, self-exp...

In this episode, we discuss Annie Ernaux’s writing in The Years alongside a paper by Jenefer Robinson entitled ‘Style and Personality in the Literary Work’. We consider Robinson’s assertion that an author’s style expresses their personality, and set it in the context of influential views of style formulated by such modernists as Flaubert, Joyce, and T.S. Eliot, and by such literary theorists as Ba...

In this episode, we discuss Annie Ernaux’s  The Years alongside, an article by Prof. Lucy O’Brien entitled ‘Shameful Self-Consciousness’. Shame, according to this paper, is a feeling which arises when we become conscious of ourselves as diminished by another’s appraisal of our social value. Prof. O’Brien joins us in the studio to discuss Ernaux’s frequent portrayals of shame in The Years and to co...

In this episode, we talk about the importance of sociology to Annie Ernaux’s Nobel-Prize-winning literary project, specifically focusing on the influence of Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’. Our special guest, Clare Carlisle, Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London, introduces the concept, explaining what Bourdieu hoped to achieve by coining a new term to designate the idea of a coll...

Literature in the Age of the Self: A Conversation with Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon, and Vidyan Ravinthiran   This bonus episode consists in a recording of an authorial roundtable held at University College London on the 16th June 2025. Entitled ‘Literature in the Age of the Self’, it brought together three highly acclaimed contemporary writers whose work evinces a marked preoccupation with the exper...

In this episode, we discuss the fifth and final section of Cusk’s Outline alongside a draft book chapter by James Lewis entitled The Peculiar Allure of Another’s Aesthetic Worldview. Lewis argues that appreciating someone’s aesthetic tastes is a central part of achieving intimacy with them. We discuss Cusk’s narrator’s prose style as a reflection of her aesthetic taste and ponder what it allows us...

In this episode, we discuss Chapter 6 of Cusk’s Outline alongside an essay by Murdoch called The Idea of Perfection. In this essay, Murdoch argues that the way we pay attention to the world is ethically significant. We talk about how Cusk’s narrator attends to the world, and what this leads the reader to infer about her character and sense of self. Speaker names: • Dr. Scarlett Baron, Associate Pr...

In this episode, we discuss Chapter 5 of Cusk’s Outline alongside Chapters 3 to 5 of Taylor’s book, The Ethics of Authenticity. Taylor identifies a tension between the sense of identity which is derived from belonging to a community, and contemporary culture’s emphasis on the importance of individual self-creation. We reflect on the ways in which Cusk’s book represents this tension. Speaker names:...

In this episode, we talk about Chapters 2 and 3 of Rachel Cusk’s Outline alongside a chapter from Williams’s book Truth and Truthfulness. The chapter considers the differences between sincerity and authenticity as contending ideals of truthfulness about the self. These two ideals, on Williams’s argument, entail different ways of thinking about the self. We contrast Williams’s notion of authenticit...

In this episode, we consider the first chapter of Cusk’s Outline alongside a paper by Daniela Dover entitled ‘The Conversational Self’. The paper examines the role of conversations in getting to know people, what an understanding of this entails for how we think about the self, and how open we should be to the influence of others. We analyse the conversations reported in Cusk’s novel in the light...

Reference to the self is ubiquitous in contemporary culture. But what is the self? Is it discovered or created? What kinds of self does literature depict? And what do philosophers have to say about it? In this trailer episode we introduce the podcast’s key questions and the literary authors on whose works we will be focusing throughout the series.    Speaker names:   Dr. Scarlett Baron, Associate...