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).
https://www.routledge.com/Iris-Murdoch-and-Early-Childhood-Education-Enhancing-Attention-and-Moral-Vision-in-Pedagogy/Delaune/p/book/9781032886169
Andrea Delaune is Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at University of Canterbury (Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha), New Zealand, where she conducts research at the intersection of ethics, pedagogy and early childhood practice. Her scholarly work explores how moral philosophy—especially concepts of attention, care, and moral vision—can illuminate and revitalise the everyday practices of early childhood teaching, care and policy. One of her central studies draws on the work of Iris Murdoch, applying Murdoch’s ideas of attention and the moral imagination to early childhood contexts. Beyond her research, Delaune is actively engaged in the professional community: she serves as Co-President of OMEP Aotearoa, New Zealand (the local chapter of the World Organisation for Early Childhood Education), where she is involved in advancing children’s rights, well-being of early childhood educators, and ethical dimensions of educator-child relationships.
Iris Murdoch and Early Childhood Education: Enhancing Attention and Moral Vision in Pedagogy (Routledge, 2026), argues for a reconceptualisation of teaching as a lived philosophical practice rather than purely a technical act.
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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).
https://www.routledge.com/Iris-Murdoch-and-Early-Childhood-Education-Enhancing-Attention-and-Moral-Vision-in-Pedagogy/Delaune/p/book/9781032886169
Andrea Delaune is Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at University of Canterbury (Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha), New Zealand, where she conducts research at the intersection of ethics, pedagogy and early childhood practice. Her scholarly work explores how moral philosophy—especially concepts of attention, care, and moral vision—can illuminate and revitalise the everyday practices of early childhood teaching, care and policy. One of her central studies draws on the work of Iris Murdoch, applying Murdoch’s ideas of attention and the moral imagination to early childhood contexts. Beyond her research, Delaune is actively engaged in the professional community: she serves as Co-President of OMEP Aotearoa, New Zealand (the local chapter of the World Organisation for Early Childhood Education), where she is involved in advancing children’s rights, well-being of early childhood educators, and ethical dimensions of educator-child relationships.
Iris Murdoch and Early Childhood Education: Enhancing Attention and Moral Vision in Pedagogy (Routledge, 2026), argues for a reconceptualisation of teaching as a lived philosophical practice rather than purely a technical act.
Much of our conception of the relationship between Iris Murdoch and John Bayley, happily married for over forty years, comes from Bayley’s memoirs, and the Oscar-winning film adaptation of the first, Iris (2001). But what do we know of their life together outside of their public appearances and international travel? In this lecture Miles Leeson will explore their intellectual relationship from their first meeting in 1955, through to John resuming his novel writing with his ‘Alice’ trilogy in the 1990s. Murdoch’s achievements are very well known, of course: John’s stretched well beyond memoir and fiction writing; his first major publication, the poem ‘Eldorado’, won the Newdigate Prize in 1951, and he was acclaimed as a book reviewer and essayist for The New York Times and many other journals and newspapers. As an expert on Austen, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Goethe and many others – indeed many of Iris’s favourite writers – their mutually enriching conversations arguably created a synergy or minds in simpatico. This lecture will attempt to trace these confluences and suggest ways of approaching their work in tandem.
This lecture was given by Dr Miles Leeson on 15th July, 2024.
The Iris Murdoch Society podcast
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).
https://www.routledge.com/Iris-Murdoch-and-Early-Childhood-Education-Enhancing-Attention-and-Moral-Vision-in-Pedagogy/Delaune/p/book/9781032886169
Andrea Delaune is Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at University of Canterbury (Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha), New Zealand, where she conducts research at the intersection of ethics, pedagogy and early childhood practice. Her scholarly work explores how moral philosophy—especially concepts of attention, care, and moral vision—can illuminate and revitalise the everyday practices of early childhood teaching, care and policy. One of her central studies draws on the work of Iris Murdoch, applying Murdoch’s ideas of attention and the moral imagination to early childhood contexts. Beyond her research, Delaune is actively engaged in the professional community: she serves as Co-President of OMEP Aotearoa, New Zealand (the local chapter of the World Organisation for Early Childhood Education), where she is involved in advancing children’s rights, well-being of early childhood educators, and ethical dimensions of educator-child relationships.
Iris Murdoch and Early Childhood Education: Enhancing Attention and Moral Vision in Pedagogy (Routledge, 2026), argues for a reconceptualisation of teaching as a lived philosophical practice rather than purely a technical act.
