Re-run: Episode 51 - A Canticle for Leibowitz with Christopher Frey
Release Date: 07/08/2023
Episode 78: Law and Literature with Donald Kochan
Sacred and Profane Love
In this season finale, I speak with Donald Kochan, who is a Professor of Law at George Washington University's Antonin Scalia Law School. We discuss George Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English Language". I hope you enjoy our conversation.
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Episode 77: Rooney's "Beautiful World Where Are You?" with Rachel Wiseman and Anastasia Berg
Sacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I speak with Rachel Wiseman and Anastasia Berg, both of whom are editors at The Point magazine, about Sally Rooney's "Beautiful World Where Are You?" I hope you enjoy our conversation.
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Episode 76: James's "The Portrait of a Lady" with Merve Emre
Sacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I speak with Merve Emre, renowned author and literary critic, on Henry James's "The Portrait of a Lady". I hope you enjoy our conversation.
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Episode 75: Ghali's "Beer in the Snooker Club" with Phil Klay
Sacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I speak with National Book Award winner Phil Klay, author of "Redeployment" and "Missionaries". We discuss a novel you've probably never heard of, but very fun: "Beer in the Snooker Club" by Egyptian writer Waguih Ghali. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
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Episode 74: Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy" with John Marenbon
Sacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I speak with John Marenbon, Cambridge Professor of medieval philosophy and world expert on Boethius, about Boethius's masterwork "Consolation of Philosophy". I hope you enjoy our conversation.
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Episode 73: St. Bonaventure's "Journey of the Mind into God" with Carlos Eire
Sacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I speak with Carlos Eire, renowned historian of the late medieval and early modern era and winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction for "Waiting for Snow in Havana." In this episode, we discuss St. Bonaventure and desire. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
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Episode 72: The 'Sacred' and the 'Profane' with Michael Foley
Sacred and Profane Love
In this episode, Professor Michael Foley and I discuss the differences between the titular concepts of this podcast, namely, the 'sacred' and the 'profane'. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
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Episode 71: Dana Gioia on the Tragic Thought of Seneca
Sacred and Profane Love
In this season finale, internationally acclaimed poet Dana Gioia and I discuss Seneca's thought in general, and his tragic work The Madness of Hercules in particular. I hope you enjoy our conversation!
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Episode 70: The Poetry of John Donne w/ Lars Engle
Sacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I speak with my colleague, Lars Engle, on the poetry and person of John Donne. There is no poet more attuned to the connections between the sacred and the profane than Donne, and it was a pleasure to hear Donne's poetic voice through Engle's readings. I hope you enjoy our conversation!
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Episode 69: Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" w/ Aaron Gwyn
Sacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I discuss Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian with Aaron Gwyn. I hope you enjoy our conversation!
info_outlineIn our first re-run for the summer, we revisit our most popular episode from Season 4, Episode 51!
In this episode, I speak to my husband (and fellow philosopher) Chris Frey about Walter M. Miller’s sci-fi novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz. We both agree that this is a novel about sin, and more specifically, how sin is connected to the myriad ways that our desire for knowledge becomes perverted and disordered. Along the way, we also talk about memory, Promethean fear, impiety, hope, the Immaculate Conception, and of course, monks. I think this episode pairs very well with episode 14, on Walker Percy, who loved this novel and was incredibly influenced by it. I also think it pairs well with a book that made an enormous impression on me in college, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, by Jean LeClercq, as well as an essay by Cora Diamond called “The Problem of Impiety”, which I’ve probably recommended before because I am constantly recommending it to everyone.
I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Christopher Frey is McFarlin Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tulsa. He has published widely on Aristotle’s natural philosophy and metaphysics, as well as contemporary issues in metaphysics and mind. You can follow him on Twitter @freychristopher.
Jennifer Frey is the inaugural dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa. Through Spring of 2023, she served as Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and as a fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. She also previously served as a Collegiate Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts and an affiliated faculty in the philosophy department. Frey holds a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.A. from Indiana University-Bloomington. She has published widely on action, virtue, practical reason, and meta-ethics, and has recently co-edited an interdisciplinary volume, Self-Transcendence and Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology (Routledge, 2018). Her writing has also been featured in First Things, Fare Forward, Image, Law and Liberty, Plough, The Point, and USA Today. You can follow her on Twitter @jennfrey.
Sacred and Profane Love is a podcast in which philosophers, theologians, and literary critics discuss some of their favorite works of literature, and how these works have shaped their own ideas about love, happiness, and meaning in human life. Host Jennifer A. Frey is the inaugural dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa. The podcast is generously supported by The Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America and produced by Catholics for Hire.