Selfy Stories

Season 2, Episode 5 - 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.