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Using unpublished archive material, including correspondence and the many annotations Murdoch made to the books held in her Oxford library, this book offers fresh insights into Murdoch´s work by placing it within a diversity of new contexts. It also reveals startling parallels between Murdoch´s work and other literary and philosophical texts.

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Introduction; A.Rowe & A.Horner PART I: THEOLOGICAL AND VISIONARY CONTEXTS Iris Murdoch: A Case of Star-Friendship; D.Cupitt The Visionary Aspects of Iris Murdoch´s Philosophy; H.Widdows PART II: POLITICS AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS Iris Murdoch and the Two Cultures: Science, Philosophy and the Novel; P.Waugh Iris Murdoch, Ian McEwan and the Place of the Political in Contemporary Fiction; A.Rowe & S.Upstone PART III: THE DERRIDEAN CONTEXT Murdoch and Derrida: Holding Hands Under the Table; T.Milligan Murdoch, Derrida and The Black Prince; P.Fiddes Minding the Gap: Mourning in the Work of Murdoch and Derrida; P.Osborn PART IV: CONTEXTS OF POWER Iris Murdoch and Theodor Reik: Sado Masochism in The Black Prince; M.Luprecht Iris Murdoch and Elias Canetti: Towards a Reassessment; E.Morley PART V: LITERARY CONTEXTS The ´wondrous necessary man´: Canetti, The Unicorn and The Changeling; A.Horner A Post-Christian concept of Martyrdom and the Murdochian Chorus: The One Alone and T.S.Eliot´s Murder in the Cathedral; F.White Language, Memory and Loss: Kristevan Psychoanalytical Perspectives on Intertextual Connections in the Work of Iris Murdoch and John Banville; W.Vaizey PART VI: BIOGRAPHICAL CONTEXTS The Influence of Childhood Reading on the Fiction of Iris Murdoch; J.Skinner Murdoch on Film: ´Re-seeing Reality´ in Richard Eyre´s Iris (2001); A.Ramon Bibliography Index

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´A splendid collection, innovative and enlightening. The essays ably examine Iris Murdoch´s work anew or afresh in a wide variety of contexts: biographical, cultural, theological, political, philosophical, psychological, scientific, deconstructionist, cinematic and intertextual. This book is a major contribution to Murdoch studies.´ - Priscilla Martin, University of Oxford, UK

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DON CUPITT Emeritus Professor, University of Cambridge, UK PAUL S. FIDDES Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Oxford, UK MARK LUPRECHT Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, University of Tennessee, USA TONY MILLIGAN Teaching Fellow, University of Aberdeen, UK ELAINE MORLEY Associate Lecturer, University of Kent, UK ALEX RAMON Lecturer, Kingston University, UK JANFARIE SKINNER Independent scholar, UK SARA UPSTONE Principal Lecturer, Kingston University, UK WENDY VAIZEY Lecturer, Kingston University, UK PATRICIA WAUGH Professor, Durham University, UK FRANCES WHITE Assistant to the Director of the Centre for Iris Murdoch Studies, Kingston University, UK HEATHER WIDDOWS Professor, University of Birmingham, UK

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