Selfy Stories Event
Discover more about the Selfy Stories podcast event.
Literature in the Age of Self
To mark the culmination and completion of a year’s worth of conversations held under the auspices of the Philosophy and Literature Reading Group, Scarlett and Alice organised a free public event around the theme of ‘Literature in the Age of the Self’. The event took place on 16 June 2025 in UCL’s Cruciform Building and was attended by more than 330 registered audience members.
The afternoon consisted of two parts.
First, a panel of engaging talks by academics about the self in literature, philosophy, and history.
Our speakers were:
Professor Clare Carlisle
Professor of Philosophy
KCL Philosophy
Prof. Clare Carlisle (KCL Philosophy), author of 'Transcendence for Beginners' (2025), 'The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life' (2023), 'Spinoza’s Religion' (2021), 'Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard' (2019), 'On Habit' (2014).
Dr Eric Langley
Associate Professor
UCL English
Dr Eric Langley (UCL English), author of 'Shakespeare’s Contagious Sympathies' (2018), 'Narcissism and Suicide in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries' (2009), and, as a poet, of 'Raking Light' (2017).
Professor Tom Stern
Professor of Philosophy
UCL Philosophy
Prof. Tom Stern (UCL Philosophy, A&H Vice-Dean for Interdisciplinarity), author of 'Philosophy and Theatre' (2019) and 'Nietzsche’s Ethics' (2019).
A creative roundtable bringing celebrated writers in conversation with each other and the audience to discuss the experience and representation of selfhood in the twenty-first century.
Our guests were:
Rachel Cusk
Novelist, memoirist and playwright
Rachel Cusk, novelist ('Parade', 2024, 'Second Place', 2021, the 'Outline' trilogy – Outline | Transit | Kudos, 2014-18, Arlington Park, 2006, among many others), memoirist ('A Life’s Work', 2001; 'The Last Supper', 2009; 'Aftermath', 2012), and playwright ('Medea', 2015).
Brian Dillon
Memoirist, author and curator
Brian Dillon, memoirist ('In the Dark Room', 2005), novelist ('Sanctuary', 2011), author of a number of genre-defying books blending the personal and the critical ('Affinities', 2023; 'Suppose a Sentence', 2020; 'Essayism', 2017; 'The Great Explosion', 2015; 'Objects in this Mirror', 2014; 'I Am Sitting in a Room', 2012; 'Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives', 2009), and curator (Tate and Hayward Galleries).
Vidyan Ravinthiran
Memoirist, poet and academic
Vidyan Ravinthiran, memoirist ('Asian/Other: Life, Poems, and the Problem of Memoir', 2025), poet ('Avidya, forthcoming; The Million-Petalled Flower of Being Here', 2019; Grun-tu-molani, 2014), and Harvard academic ('Spontaneity and Form in Modern Prose', 2022; 'Worlds Woven Together', 2022; 'Elizabeth Bishop’s Prosaic', 2015).
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