Reference to the self is ubiquitous in contemporary culture. But what is the self? Is it discovered or created? To what degree is it shaped by external forces and to what degree is it subject to internal control? How do the stories we tell about ourselves shape our identity? To what extent is it valid to invoke ideas of truth, sincerity, and authenticity in relation to the self? What kinds of self does literature delineate?
These are some of the questions we will be asking in this UCL podcast. In each episode, a literary scholar and a philosopher ponder how present-day literary representations of the self relate to what philosophers have to say about it. The literary focus of the first season is Outline, by Rachel Cusk; the literary focus of the second is The Years, by Annie Ernaux. In each episode, chapters or sections of these books are discussed alongside a relevant intervention in philosophy.
The Narrative Self: Alice Harberd, with special guest Emmanuel Campion-Dye
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 personal and sociological selves and ponder to what extent it embraces, or resists, narrative form. We are joined in the UCL Studio by Emmanuel Campion-Dye, a Philosophy PhD student and an ever spirited and probing member of our Philosophy and Literature Reading Group.
Hosts:
Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor of English at University College London.
Alice Harberd, PhD student in the Philosophy Department at University College London.
Guest:
Emmanuel Campion-Dye, PhD student in the Philosophy Department at University College London.
23 Oct 2025
SEASON 2, EPISODE 4 – The Self in Time: Marya Schechtman
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-experience is multiperspectival, comprising both temporally extended and temporally local perspectives; we contain many selves and this fact is central to the complexity of our moral life. We look closely at pages 137-182 of Annie Ernaux’s The Years to see whether the author’s rendering of her own self in time reflects such multiperspectivalism.
Hosts:
Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor of English at University College London.
Alice Harberd, PhD student in the Philosophy Department at University College London.
15 Oct 2025
Season 2, Episode 3 Style and Personality: Jenefer Robinson
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 Barthes, Bakhtin, and Kristeva. Ernaux’s own study of literature coincided with the heyday of literary theory in France. We use Robinson’s paper as a starting-point for reflection on the purposes and effects of the impersonal style Ernaux crafts in The Years.
Hosts: Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor of English at University College London and Alice Harberd, PhD student in the Philosophy Department at University College London.
8 Oct 2025
Season 2, Episode 2 The Shamed Self, with special guest Prof. Lucy O’Brien
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 consider how well they fit the theory outlined in her paper.
Hosts:
Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor of English at University College London.
Alice Harberd, PhD student in the Philosophy Department at University College London.
Guest:
Lucy O’Brien, Richard Wollheim Chair of Philosophy at University College London.
1 Oct 2025
Season 2, Episode 1 - The Sociological Self, with special guest Prof. Clare Carlisle
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 collective disposition or class sensibility. Together, focusing on the opening of The Years (2008), Ernaux’s magnum opus, we consider the ways in which the book’s treatment of self, class, and nation can be read as ‘applied Bourdieu’.
Our philosophical starting-point is a chapter by Karl Maton entitled ‘Habitus’ and published in Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts, ed. Michael Grenfell, 2012.
Our literary focus is on pages x-51 of Annie Ernaux’s The Years in Alison L. Strayer’s translation (Fitzcarraldo, 2018).
Hosts:
Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor of English at University College London.
Alice Harberd, PhD student in the Philosophy Department at University College London.
Guest:
Clare Carlisle, Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London.
24 Sept 2025
Literature in the Age of the Self: A Conversation with Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon, and Vidyan Ravinthiran
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 experience and the representation of the self.
In this conversation chaired by Scarlett and Alice, Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon, and Vidyan Ravinthiran discuss the self in connection with notions of style, character, and time. They also reflect on the relations between creative and academic writing, between literature and other arts, and on the status of the self in the age of AI and social media.
Guest Speakers:
Rachel Cusk, novelist, memoirist, essayist, and playwright.
Brian Dillon, essayist, memoirist, novelist, and curator.
Vidyan Ravinthiran, poet and memoirist and Associate Professor of English at Harvard.
Hosts:
Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor of English at University College London.
Alice Harberd, PhD student in the Philosophy Department at University College London.
11 Jun 2025
5. The Aesthetic Self: James Lewis
Dr. James Lewis explores how appreciating another's aesthetic tastes fosters intimacy, discussing it with Dr. Scarlett Baron and Alice Harberd in an interview about self-perception.
4 Jun 2025
4. The Ethics of Attention: Iris Murdoch
Dr. Scarlett Baron and Alice Harberd analyze Iris Murdoch's essay, exploring how focused attention on the world reveals character and ethical significance in this interview episode.
28 May 2025
3. The Ethics of Authenticity: Charles Taylor
Dr. Scarlett Baron and Alice Harberd analyze Charles Taylor's 'The Ethics of Authenticity' alongside Cusk's 'Outline', exploring the conflict between community identity and individual self-creation in contemporary culture; this is a discussion episode.
21 May 2025
2. From Sincerity to Authenticity: Bernard Williams
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 authenticity with that invoked by various characters in Outline.
Speaker names:
• Dr. Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor in the English Department at UCL.
• Alice Harberd, PhD Student in the Philosophy Department at UCL.
14 May 2025
1. The Conversational Self: Daniela Dover
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 of Dover’s ideal.
Speaker names:
• Dr. Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor in the English Department at UCL.
• Alice Harberd, PhD Student in the Philosophy Department at UCL.
7 May 2025
Trailer: The Self Today
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 Professor in the English Department at UCL.
Alice Harberd, PhD Student in the Philosophy Department at UCL.
Transcript: https://sites.google.com/view/uclphilandlitgroup/podcast (https://sites.google.com/view/uclphilandlitgroup/podcast)
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