Episode 51: A Canticle for Leibowitz with Christopher Frey
Release Date: 07/11/2022
Sacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I speak with Stephen Karian, renowned scholar of 18th century British literature, on the poems of Jonathan Swift, the promise and perils of satire, and the pleasures of reading profane poetry written by one of the great Divines. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Read along with us at .
info_outline Episode 67: Poetry, Art, and Truth with Carl PhillipsSacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I am joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carl Phillips to discuss poetry, classic texts, art, and truth. I hope you enjoy our conversation!
info_outline Episode 66: Ovid's "The Art of Love" with Julia HejdukSacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I speak with the classicist Julia Hejduk on Ovid's The Art of Love. I hope you enjoy our conversation!
info_outline Episode 65: Boris Dralyuk on Nabokov’s PninSacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I speak with my colleague at TU, Boris Dralyuk on Vladmir Nabokov’s delightful take on the campus novel, Pnin. We explore our endearing hero’s journey from being a man on the wrong train to becoming an American behind the wheel at long last. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
info_outline Episode 64: Patrick Deneen on DeLillo's White NoiseSacred and Profane Love
In this episode, I speak with the political theorist Patrick Deneen about Don DeLillo’s award winning novel, White Noise. We explore the novel’s undercurrents of existential angst in a world of distraction, amnesia, and unfulfilled longings. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
info_outline The Podcast Returns!Sacred and Profane Love
Six years ago I launched a literature, philosophy, and theology podcast. I had no assumptions that anyone would listen to it; it was an output for a grant project on virtue, happiness, and meaning of life. Today, I am thrilled to announce the launch of season 5 of Sacred and Profane Love, now fully supported by , where I am privileged to serve as dean of their Honors College. In this episode, I explain the hiatus and share some exciting news about the podcast, including our new friends over at Switchyard. Learn more at .
info_outline Re-run: Episode 43 - The Closing of the American Mind with Brad CarsonSacred and Profane Love
This week, we revisit Episode 43 with Brad Carson on Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind!
info_outline Re-run: Episode 50 - "Are the Humanities in Crisis" with Zena Hitz and Chad WellmonSacred and Profane Love
Throwback to the big five-oh: Episode 50 with Zena Hitz and Chad Wellmon!
info_outline Re-run: Episode 45 - Roosevelt Montás on Great Books and Intellectual TransformationSacred and Profane Love
This very exciting episode on liberal education with Professor Roosevelt Montás makes a come back this week!
info_outline Re-run: Episode 41 - James Baldwin is bringing the fire with Dr. Cornel WestSacred and Profane Love
Throwback to our first episode recorded with a live audience: Dr. Cornel West on James Baldwin!
info_outlineIn 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 an associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina. He has published widely on Aristotle’s natural philosophy and metaphysics, as well as contemporary issues in metaphysics and mind. He is currently finishing his first book, The Principle of Life: Aristotelian Souls in an Inanimate World. A native of Los Angeles, he currently lives in Columbia, South Carolina, with his wife (the host of Sacred and Profane Love) and their six children. You can follow him on Twitter @FreyChristopher
Jennifer Frey is an associate professor of philosophy and Peter and Bonnie McCausland Faculty Fellow at the University of South Carolina. She is also a fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America and the Word on Fire Institute. Prior to joining the philosophy faculty at USC, she was 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. She earned her Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, and her B.A. in Philosophy and Medieval Studies (with a Classics minor) at Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana. 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. Her writing has also been featured in Breaking Ground, First Things, Fare Forward, Image, Law and Liberty, The Point, and USA Today. She lives in Columbia, SC, with her husband, six children, and chickens. 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 an associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina. The podcast is generously supported by The Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America and produced by Catholics for Hire.
Audio Edited & Music Produced by Anthony Monson