In this episode, I speak with the poet, critic, and biographer Paul Mariani, professor emeritus at Boston College. We discuss his new book, All that Will be New and his biography of Robert Lowell, The Lost Puritan. We discuss Lowell's life, poetry, and his struggle with the permanent things: religion, marriage, art, family. Given the influence of Hopkins on his early poems, I think this episode pairs well with episode 38 with Nick Ripatrazone.

As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Paul Mariani is the University Professor of English emeritus at Boston College. He is the author of twenty books, including biographies of William Carlos Williams, John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Hart Crane, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Wallace Stevens. He has published nine volumes of poetry: All That Will New, Ordinary Time, Epitaphs for the Journey, Deaths & Transfigurations, The Great Wheel, Salvage Operations: New & Selected Poems, Prime Mover, Crossing Cocytus, and Timing Devices. He is also the author of the spiritual memoir, Thirty Days: On Retreat with the Exercises of St. Ignatius and The Mystery of It All: The Vocation of Poetry in the Twilight of Modernity. His awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim and the NEA and NEH. In September 2019, he was awarded the inaugural Flannery O’Connor Lifetime Achievement Award from the Catholic Imagination Conference at Loyola University, Chicago.

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.

In this episode, I speak with my friends, Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP and Fr. Jonah Teller, OP about the relationship between art, truth, and beauty, sacred and profane music, how music might be integral to religious life, and whether the banjo is beautiful. Long time listeners will remember Thomas Joseph from our very first episode on Flannery O'Connor, where we discuss what she meant by calling herself a "Hillbilly Thomist;" and since I consider myself something of a Hillbilly Thomist myself, I thought it would be fun to start off season five with a lighthearted conversation with two members of my favorite folk and bluegrass band, The Hillbilly Thomists.

Fr. Thomas Joseph White is the Rector Magnificus of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) in Rome. He is the author of various books and articles including Wisdom in the Face of Modernity: A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology (Sapientia Press, 2011), The Incarnate Lord, A Thomistic Study in Christology (The Catholic University of America Press, 2015) Exodus (Brazos Press, 2016), The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism (Catholic University Press, 2017), and The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God (Catholic University Press, 2022). He is co-editor of the journal Nova et Vetera, a Distinguished Scholar of the McDonald Agape Foundation, and a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Fr. Jonah Teller, O.P., is a friar of the Dominican Province of Saint Joseph. He holds a licentiate in sacred theology from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. At present, he lives in D.C. and works as Coordinator for Campus Outreach at the Thomistic Institute, an organization that exists to promote Catholic truth in our contemporary world by strengthening the intellectual formation of Christians at universities, in the Church, and in the wider public square. He is also the third-best guitarist in The Hillbilly Thomists.

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 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

On April 26, 2022, The Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America hosted a launch event to reveal the new design and website of Sacred and Profane Love. I am pleased to share the audio of that event as episode 50, but you can also watch a video of it here.

This event, with Zena Hitz and Chad Wellmon, was titled “Are the Humanities in Crisis” and the two starting points for the conversation were two books that we have already discussed separately on the podcast: Zena’s Lost in Thought and Chad’s Permanent Crisis. I wrote about the first book here, the second book here, discussed the first book here, and discussed the second book here. It seems fitting that our fiftieth episode should get into the very issues that gave rise to the impetus to start the podcast in the first place, which was and remains the need to show the value of humanistic inquiry and reflection, both inside and outside of the academy. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Audio edited and music produced by: Anthony Monson

In this episode, I speak with the writer, editor, and critic, Christopher Beha, about the Danish bildungsroman by Henrik Pontoppidan, Lucky Per. We focus on Per’s struggle to escape from those aspects of his life that are not chosen—family, religion, place—his quest to understand himself, to love other people, and to live a life that is truly happy and free.  Along the way, we discuss reviews of the novel by James Wood and Morten Hoi Jensen, and we give our own diagnosis of why Per fails to be either happy or free. 

I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Links:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/21/a-neglected-modern-masterpiece-and-its-perverse-hero

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/09/30/the-danish-tolstoy/  

Christopher Beha is the author of a memoir, The Whole Five Feet, and the novels Arts & Entertainments and What Happened to Sophie Wilder. His latest novel, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award. He is the editor of Harper’s Magazine.

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 Tony Monson

In this episode, I speak with philosopher Thomas Hibbs (Baylor) about Dostoyevsky's famous novel, Crime and Punishment. We discuss how Raskolnikov gets trapped in various philosophical theories he has embraced, and what might help him go from theory to authentic human life again. Along the way, we discuss the limitations of philosophy, the importance of literature as an antidote to modern moral theorizing, and the genre of confessions. And, of course, we talk about suffering, and why Raskolnikov needs to embrace it.

Thomas Hibbs is currently J. Newton Rayzor Sr. Professor of Philosophy at Baylor where he is also Dean Emeritus, having served 16 years as Dean of the Honors College and Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture. Hibbs has a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and served as a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College, Full Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at Boston College, and President of the University of Dallas. Hibbs has published more than thirty scholarly articles and seven books, the most recent of which is Wagering on an Ironic God: Pascal on Philosophy and Faith (Baylor University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a book on Catholic aesthetics that is under contract with the University of Notre Dame Press. Hibbs is a Fellow of the Institute of Human Ecology at Catholic University, where he had a sabbatical in the Fall of 2018.

In this episode, I speak with the philosopher, podcaster, and substacker extraordinaire, Justin E.H. Smith about Cormac McCarthy’s fourth novel, Suttree. We were both struck by how different this novel is from McCarthy’s later, more famous works—both in its style and in its literary ambitions. We resist the common temptation to read McCarthy as a nihilist; we puzzle over the beginning and the end of the novel, and how they relate to one another; and quite generally we just had a great time trying to figure out what McCarthy was up to in this beautiful and somewhat mystifying novel about one man's journey into the depths of the seedy underbelly of Knoxville, Tennessee.

I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Jennifer Frey is an associate Professor of Philosophy and a Peter and Bonnie McCausland Fellow at the University of South Carolina, as well as 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 six chickens. You can follow her on Twitter @jennfrey.

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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 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

In this episode, I speak with Katy Carl, who is the editor in chief of Dappled Things and also the author of As Earth Without Water, to discuss Henry James's novella, Washington Square and R.R. Reno's essay, Duty, the Soul of Beauty. After a great deal of back and forth, we come to the conclusion that what the novella shows is that mere duty, in absence of well ordered loves and the habits of attention that come with it, can be a destructive force in family and social life.

Katy Carl is the editor-in-chief of Dappled Things and the author of the novel, As Earth Without Water. You can follow her on Twitter @MrsKatyCarl

Jennifer Frey is an associate Professor of Philosophy and a Peter and Bonnie McCausland Fellow at the University of South Carolina, as well as 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 six 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 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

In this episode, I am joined by Professor Roosevelt Montas to discuss his new book Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation. Montas, a Dominican born American academic, makes the compelling case that study of the Great Books is potentially transformative, especially for students from working class communities or who are members of historically marginalized communities. Montas further argues that the future of the Humanities in this country does not lay primarily in specialized research but in undergraduate education--particularly in general undergrad education. We talk about arguments that Great Books courses are racist, sexist, or otherwise somehow oppressive, and why we think they are dead wrong.

This episode is especially close to my heart and I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Buy Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation here:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691200392/rescuing-socrates

Audio Edited & Music Produced by Anthony Monson

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Kevin Kambo about Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, in light of an essay by Louise Cowan titled "The Tragic Abyss." Cowan argues that tragedy is "a liturgical confrontation of a deep seated dread which, when brought to light, can be borne only through the medium of poetic language." We discuss the nature of the tragic, which always involves a moment of "unmasking" and a peering into the dark abyss; we discuss what tragic wisdom is and how you could possibly gain it; and we try to grapple with the question of how our grasp of the tragic changes when we shift our perspective from Athens to Jerusalem.

Read more about Kevin Kambo and myself on The Vitrue Blog!

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Kevin Kambo about Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, in light of an essay by Louise Cowan titled "The Tragic Abyss." Cowan argues that tragedy is "a liturgical confrontation of a deep seated dread which, when brought to light, can be borne only through the medium of poetic language." We discuss the nature of the tragic, which always involves a moment of "unmasking" and a peering into the dark abyss; we discuss what tragic wisdom is and how you could possibly gain it; and we try to grapple with the question of how our grasp of the tragic changes when we shift our perspective from Athens to Jerusalem.

Read more about Kevin Kambo and myself on The Virtue Blog!

https://thevirtueblog.com/

Audio Recorded by Jennifer Frey

Audio Edited & Music Produced by Anthony Monson