Download Episode 7: Boasts of Love in Troilus and Criseyde   In Episode 7 of Sacred & Profane Love, Professor Jennifer A. Frey speaks with her colleague in the English department at the University of South Carolina, Professor Holly A. Crocker, about the boasts and pledges of love in Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous Middle English poem, Troilus and Criseyde.  … Continue reading Podcast: “Boasts of Love in Troilus and Criseyde” | Sacred and Profane Love, Episode 7 →

Download Episode 6: Elena Ferrante on Friendship and the Intellectual Life  In Episode 6 of Sacred & Profane Love, Professor Jennifer A. Frey (University of South Carolina) has a conversation with Zena Hitz (St. John’s College) about friendship, the intellectual life, and the virtue of seriousness in Elena Ferrante’s Neopolitan novels.  This episode explores how … Continue reading Podcast: Elena Ferrante on Friendship and the Intellectual Life | Sacred & Profane Love →

Download Episode 5: Talbot Brewer on Eros and Ecstasy In Episode 5 of Sacred & Profane Love, Professor Jennifer A. Frey (University of South Carolina) discusses the erotic impulse and experience with Professor of philosophy Talbot Brewer (University of Virginia).  This discussion explores how eros draws us out of ourselves into a kind of ecstatic … Continue reading Podcast: “Eros and Ecstasy” | Sacred & Profane Love →

In Episode 4 of the podcast Sacred & Profane Love, Professor Jennifer A. Frey speaks with philosopher, poet, and literary critic, Troy Jollimore, about how romantic ideologies and illusions can destroy our ability to experience real and meaningful love–the sort of love that is a central part of a happy and meaningful life. We ground … Continue reading Podcast: “Fantasy, Romance, and Self-destruction in Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary” | Sacred & Profane Love →

In Episode 3 of the podcast Sacred & Profane Love, philosopher Jennifer A. Frey has a conversation with fellow philosopher Nancy Snow, about why she thinks we should be reading the poetry of Walt Whitman in our current political moment.  We discuss Whitman’s, “Song of Myself” and “Democratic Vistas,” and how each of these … Continue reading Podcast: “Walt Whitman on hope and national character” | Sacred & Profane Love →

In Episode 2 of the podcast Sacred & Profane Love, philosopher Jennifer A. Frey has a conversation with fellow philosopher, David McPherson (Creighton University), about transfiguring love as explored by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his influential novel, The Brother’s Karamazov.  The episode covers Dostoyevksy’s treatment of the classic problem of evil—i.e., the problem of reconciling … Continue reading Podcast: “Transfiguring Love in the Brothers Karamazov” | Sacred & Profane Love →

In Episode 1 of the podcast Sacred & Profane Love, philosopher Jennifer A. Frey has a conversation with the Thomist theologian, Father Thomas Joseph White, O.P., about Aquinas on grace and charity, and how Thomistic concepts of grace and charity operate in the short stories of Flannery O’Connor. The episode covers themes of grace, redemption, … Continue reading Podcast: “Redemptive love and comic mercy in the short stories of Flannery O’Connor” | Sacred & Profane Love →