This evening, I’m heading to Cambridge where I’m taking part in a Cambridge Union debate on the motion ‘This House Would Kill One to Save Many’. Also debating are Professor Julian Savulescu from the University of Oxford, the prolific philosopher, writer and podcaster Nigel Warbuton, Professor Alexandra Tanensini from Cardiff, Charlotte Knowles from Birbeck, and Lucy Yu, who is head …
I’m very pleased to have found myself a new agent at C+W, where I will be represented by the excellent Emma Fine. I’m very much looking forward to getting started on work with Emma on two non-fiction projects that have been in the works for a long time: one big, single-themed project that ranges across anthropology, philosophy, literature, history and …
I’m delighted that my introductory guide to the philosophies of happiness is to be re-released in early 2018 by Icon Books. It’s also got a handsome new cover. I’ll post on this blog when the book is out.
I’m really excited to be launching my Women in Philosophy mini-course today over on highbrow. It’s a ten day course that covers everything and everyone from Diotima and Hypatia to Judith Butler and Kimberlé Crenshaw. It’s been hugely stimulating and challenging to write, and has provoked me into thinking once again about the misogyny and sexism of the Western philosophical tradition. …
I’m very much looking forward to interviewing Burmese writer, translator and photojournalist Letyar Tun at Aston University on Thursday 9th November at 6pm. The event is one of three launching the British Council’s collection Hidden Words, Hidden Worlds: Contemporary Short Stories from Myanmar. There’s a link to the event here. It’s free to attend.
After a pause of a few months, I’m pleased to be back to teaching again. I’ve always found teaching and writing mutually supportive, so I’m delighted to be working on the second year of the Open University MA course in Creative Writing, and on the BA in Creative Writing at the Open College of the Arts. Term starts soon, and …
I’m very pleased to see my new short story, ‘Messages’, published in vol 6 of The Amorist, the magazine ‘for devotees of love and passion.’ It is a tale of distance, desire and the power of words. The Amorist should be available from all good newsagents.
This was recorded last December, but I forgot to post it back then, so I thought I should add this link to a video of my Bulgarian TV interview with the excellent Dessie Mikova about my novel The Descent of the Lyre. It was recorded last December when I was over in Sofia. In this interview, you will note that …
I’m really pleased to be able to announce that I’ve just received the contract from Routledge for Dr. Elee Kirk’s forthcoming book Snapshots of Museum Experience — a study of children’s experiences and photography in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. It will be published in their Routledge Research in Museum Studies series. As many of you know, Elee was …
I’m delighted to announce that my introductory philosophy course, “What Is Wisdom: An Introduction To Philosophy”, has just been launched over on Highbrow. It’s a ten-day email course which covers a whole range of philosophers — Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Confucius, Zhuangzi and the Buddha. The course explores what the philosophers have said about what wisdom is or might be. …