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.
Miles is joined by Lucy Oulton (University of Chichester) to discuss her new book, Iris Murdoch's Wild Imagination: Nature and the Environment (Palgrave, 2025).
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-87833-6
This book presents the first ecocritical study of novelist, philosopher, poet and public intellectual Iris Murdoch (1919–1999). It brings her love of the natural world into the light, arguing for its critical significance when Murdoch conveys an awareness of intricately interconnected ecologies through her work: an awareness that anticipates the motivations and concerns of modern-day environmental humanities. The book is the first of its kind to assess some of Murdoch's poems, seen as early articulation of the environmental imagination that finds recurrent expression in her novels, philosophical writings and personal journals throughout her writing life. This book offers a significant entry point for a new research direction in Murdoch studies by explicating her unique perspective on the natural world.
Lucy Oulton is a Research Associate at the Iris Murdoch Research Centre, University of Chichester, UK. She is an Editor of the Iris Murdoch Review, to which she has also contributed.
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.
