Literature in the Age of the Self: A Conversation with Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon, and Vidyan Ravinthiran

Literature in the Age of the Self: A Conversation with Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon, and Vidyan Ravinthiran

 

This bonus episode consists in a recording of an authorial roundtable held at University College London on the 16th June 2025. Entitled ‘Literature in the Age of the Self’, it brought together three highly acclaimed contemporary writers whose work evinces a marked preoccupation with the experience and the representation of the self. 

In this conversation chaired by Scarlett and Alice, Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon, and Vidyan Ravinthiran discuss the self in connection with notions of style, character, and time. They also reflect on the relations between creative and academic writing, between literature and other arts, and on the status of the self in the age of AI and social media.

Guest Speakers: 

 

Rachel Cusk, novelist, memoirist, essayist, and playwright.

Brian Dillon, essayist, memoirist, novelist, and curator.

Vidyan Ravinthiran, poet and memoirist and Associate Professor of English at Harvard.

 

Hosts: 

 

Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor of English at University College London.

Alice Harberd, PhD student in the Philosophy Department at University College London.

What is Selfy Stories?

Reference to the self is ubiquitous in contemporary culture. But what is the self? Is it discovered or created? To what degree is it shaped by external forces and to what degree is it subject to internal control? How do the stories we tell about ourselves shape our identity? To what extent is it valid to invoke ideas of truth, sincerity, and authenticity in relation to the self? What kinds of self does literature delineate?

These are some of the questions we will be asking in this UCL podcast. In each episode, a literary scholar and a philosopher ponder how present-day literary representations of the self relate to what philosophers have to say about it. The literary focus of the first season is Outline, by Rachel Cusk; the literary focus of the second is The Years, by Annie Ernaux. In each episode, chapters or sections of these books are discussed alongside a relevant intervention in philosophy.