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In 2019, Midgley warned that we have been lulled to sleep by dangerous myths and stories that comfort us with a lie: that our future is out of our hands and technology will take care of tomorrow for us. She thought philosophy could wake us up. Not dry, argumentative philosophy, but philosophical stories that enliven us to the fact that ‘what happens next is up to us’.

To create these stories, philosophers will need the help of poets. Join poet Gillian Allnutt, philosopher-musician Jennifer Judge, and philosopher István Zárdai to discuss philosophy, poetry and story.

Chaired by Clare Mac Cumhaill, Durham University and Rachael Wiseman, University of Liverpool.

This event was recorded as part of Durham Book Festival in October 2020. Explore their website here.

Gillian Allnutt

From 1968-1971 Gillian Allnutt studied Philosophy and English at Cambridge. She then ignored philosophy for nearly five decades but was sufficiently encouraged, through meeting Mary Midgley in 2013 and reading her recent books, to come back to it with renewed interest.

Meanwhile she has published nine collections of poetry, seven of them with Bloodaxe Books. The latest, wake, was published in 2018. How the Bicycle Shone: New & Selected Poems (2007) includes work from Nantucket and the Angel (1997) and Lintel (2001), both shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

She has taught creative writing in universities and schools and a variety of other settings. She has held residencies in community projects – working, for example, with Orthodox Jewish women in Gateshead and, with Freedom From Torture in 2009-10, with asylum-seekers in Newcastle and Stockton. She has also worked as a freelance journalist and, from 1983-88, as Poetry Editor of City Limits magazine in London.

She won the Northern Rock Foundation Writer’s Award in 2005 and in 2016 was presented with The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

Jenny Judge

Jenny Judge is a PhD candidate in philosophy at NYU. She also holds a PhD in music from the University of Cambridge, as well as degrees in philosophy, mathematics and music from University College Cork and the Cork School of Music. In her doctoral dissertation, she develops and defends a novel theory of musical meaning. In addition to being a philosopher, Judge is also an active musician: she writes and performs original music in New York City as part of 'Pet Beast', a collaboration with guitarist Ted Morcaldi. While at Cambridge, she sang with Trinity College Choir. In addition to her academic publications, Judge has also published for non-specialist audiences in venues such as Aeon, Medium, The Philosopher's Magazine and The Guardian.

István Zoltan Zardai

István Zoltan Zardai is a philosopher currently working and living in Japan. He completed his BA and MA studies in Hungary at the University of Pecs, and his PhD in the UK at Oxford Brookes and at Hertfordshire University, under the supervision of Prof Constantine Sandis. István works mainly on philosophy of action and agency, and connected topics in ethics, moral psychology, and the philosophy of AI. Following his PhD he was a teacher and an administrator in higher education, and most recently a postdoc research fellow at Keio University, Tokyo with a grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. He is also a contributor to Dr Tamas Demeter's project 'Morals and Values in Modern Science'.

Rachael Wiseman & Clare Mac Cumhaill, In Parenthesis

Rachael and Clare are co-directors of In Parenthesis, a research collaboration that looks at the lives and philosophy of Mary Midgley, Iris Murdoch, G.E.M Anscombe and Philippa Foot - a.k.a. The Quartet. To grips with the staggering complexity, depth and volume of the Quartet's work they rely on the expertise, generosity, and time of numerous friends, researchers, students, archivists and other sorts of experts and enthusiasts. Join them and friends of In Parenthesis to celebrate the biscuit tin's homecoming.