Podcasts about collegiate assistant professor

This week, we welcome Jennifer Frey to The Hamilton Review! Jennifer is currently the Dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa, with a secondary appointment as professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religion. In this episode, Jennifer and Dr. Bob discuss her recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled, "Three Books on What Being a Parent Really Means." Enjoy this dynamic conversation! Jennifer Frey's bio in her own words: I am currently the Dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa, with a secondary appointment as professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religion. Previously, I was an Associate Professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, where I was also a Peter and Bonnie McCausland faculty fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences. I am also a faculty fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, and a Newbigin Interfaith Fellow with The Carver Project. Prior to coming to the University of South Carolina, I was a Collegiate Assistant Professor the Humanities at the University of Chicago, where I was also a member of the Society for the Liberal Arts. I earned my Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, where I studied under John McDowell and Michael Thompson, and my B.A. in Philosophy and Medieval Studies (with a Classics minor) at Indiana University-Bloomington. My academic research is primarily in moral psychology and virtue. I've co-edited a volume titled Self-Transcendence and Virtue with my former colleague Candace Vogler, and I am finishing up a volume titled Practical Truth with my husband and colleague, Christopher Frey. A third volume, titled Practical Wisdom, is under contract with Oxford University Press. In 2015, I was awarded a multi-million dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation, titled “Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life.” I frequently write more popular essays and book reviews in places like Breaking Ground, First Things, Image, and The Point. I host a philosophy, theology, and literature podcast called Sacred and Profane Love. How to contact Jennifer Frey: Jennifer Frey website   How to contact Dr. Bob: Dr. Bob on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChztMVtPCLJkiXvv7H5tpDQ Dr. Bob on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drroberthamilton/ Dr. Bob on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bob.hamilton.1656 Dr. Bob's Seven Secrets Of The Newborn website: https://7secretsofthenewborn.com/ Dr. Bob's website: https://roberthamiltonmd.com/ Pacific Ocean Pediatrics: http://www.pacificoceanpediatrics.com/  

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.    Boris Dralyuk is a poet, translator, and critic. He holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from UCLA, and has taught there and the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He currently teaches in the English Department at the University of Tulsa. His work has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, London Review of Books, The Guardian, Granta, and other journals. He is the author of My Hollywood and Other Poems (Paul Dry Books, 2022) and Western Crime Fiction Goes East: The Russian Pinkerton Craze 1907-1934 (Brill, 2012), editor of 1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution (Pushkin Press, 2016), co-editor, with Robert Chandler and Irina Mashinski, of The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry (Penguin Classics, 2015), and translator of Isaac Babel, Andrey Kurkov, Maxim Osipov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, and other authors. He received first prize in the 2011 Compass Translation Award competition and, with Irina Mashinski, first prize in the 2012 Joseph Brodsky / Stephen Spender Translation Prize competition. In 2020 he received the inaugural  from the Washington Monthly. In 2022 he received the inaugural  from the National Book Critics Circle for his translation of Andrey Kurkov's Grey Bees. You can find him on X .   Jennifer A. Frey is the inaugural dean of the , with a secondary appointment as professor of philosophy in the department of philosophy and religion. Previously, she was an Associate Professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, where she was also a Peter and Bonnie McCausland faculty fellow in the . Prior to her tenure at Carolina, she was a Collegiate Assistant Professor the Humanities at the University of Chicago, and a junior fellow of the .   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-Bloomington. In 2015, she was awarded a multi-million dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation, titled “Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life,” She has published widely on virtue and moral psychology, and she has edited three academic volumes on virtue and human action. Her writing has been featured in First Things, Image, Law and Liberty, The Point, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal.  She lives with her husband and six children in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is on X      

In this episode, I speak with my colleague, Agnes Mueller, who is a professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina, about why Thomas Mann's novella, Death in Venice, is a must-read during our ongoing pandemic. We talk about Modernism, Plato, and Nietzsche. We see the novella as exploring sickness, death, and eros, and we find similarities and continuities between the lovesickness that grips von Aschenbach and cholera that eventually kills him. We also ask whether Mann's novella is a rebuke of, or perhaps even a vindication of, Plato's ideal of erotic love. Either way, we agree that the novella is a deep engagement with Platonic ideas and is one of the best treatments of love in literature, period. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Agnes Mueller (M.A., LMU Munich, Germany, 1993, Ph.D., Vanderbilt U, 1997), a Professor, is an expert on recent and contemporary German literature. She is core faculty in Comparative Literature and affiliated with Women's and Gender Studies and with Jewish Studies. Her publications are on German-American relations, multicultural studies, gender issues in contemporary literature, German-Jewish studies, and Holocaust studies. Her 2004 anthology German Pop Culture: How “American” Is It? (U of Michigan P) is widely used for teaching and research. In addition to all levels of German language and culture, she regularly teaches advanced undergraduate and graduate classes, and has lectured in Germany, Canada, and the U.S. Her most recently published book is entitled The Inability to Love: Jews, Gender, and America in Recent German Literature now available in German translation as Die Unfaehigkeit zu lieben. She is currently at work on a new project, entitled Holocaust Migration: Jewish Fiction in Today's Germany. In it, she traces the ways in which challenges of living in a multi-ethnic society where past trauma is dispersed are negotiated. Jennifer A. Frey is an associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. 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 Classics minor) at 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. Her writing has also been featured in First Things, Fare Forward, Image, 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 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.

This week, we revisit Episode 43 with Brad Carson on Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind! In this episode, I speak with the president of the University of Tulsa, Brad Carson, about Allan Bloom's infamous book, The Closing of the American Mind. Brad and I ultimately decide that while we like some of Bloom's key ideas about what a university is for, we do not love the book itself, which has some serious flaws (though we may differ slightly about what we think those flaws are). As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Brad Carson is The University of Tulsa's 21st president. Having built a distinguished career in public service, law and education, before becoming president of TU, Carson was a professor at the University of Virginia, teaching courses related to national security and public sector innovation. In 2015, President Barack Obama appointed Carson acting under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness at the U.S. Department of Defense. Prior to that, Carson served as the under secretary of the U.S. Army, where he managed the daily operations of the largest military service, and as general counsel of the U.S. Army, where he oversaw the service's worldwide legal operations. Carson is widely published and is a noted authority on national security, energy policy and American politics. From 2001 to 2005, Carson served two terms as a U.S. congressman, representing Oklahoma's 2nd District. Later, he was appointed to the faculty of TU's Collins College of Business and College of Law, where he taught courses on energy policy, property law, negotiation and game theory, globalization and law and literature. In 2008, Carson deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom as an intelligence officer and was awarded the Bronze Star for his service. Raised in Oklahoma, Carson received his BA from Baylor University and was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. He then went on to earn a JD at the University of Oklahoma. 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, Psychology, and Theology (Routledge, 2018). 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 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.

This week, we revisit Episode 43 with Brad Carson on Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind! In this episode, I speak with the president of the University of Tulsa, Brad Carson, about Allan Bloom's infamous book, The Closing of the American Mind. Brad and I ultimately decide that while we like some of Bloom's key ideas about what a university is for, we do not love the book itself, which has some serious flaws (though we may differ slightly about what we think those flaws are). As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Brad Carson is The University of Tulsa's 21st president. Having built a distinguished career in public service, law and education, before becoming president of TU, Carson was a professor at the University of Virginia, teaching courses related to national security and public sector innovation. In 2015, President Barack Obama appointed Carson acting under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness at the U.S. Department of Defense. Prior to that, Carson served as the under secretary of the U.S. Army, where he managed the daily operations of the largest military service, and as general counsel of the U.S. Army, where he oversaw the service's worldwide legal operations. Carson is widely published and is a noted authority on national security, energy policy and American politics. From 2001 to 2005, Carson served two terms as a U.S. congressman, representing Oklahoma's 2nd District. Later, he was appointed to the faculty of TU's Collins College of Business and College of Law, where he taught courses on energy policy, property law, negotiation and game theory, globalization and law and literature. In 2008, Carson deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom as an intelligence officer and was awarded the Bronze Star for his service. Raised in Oklahoma, Carson received his BA from Baylor University and was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. He then went on to earn a JD at the University of Oklahoma. 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, Psychology, and Theology (Routledge, 2018). 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 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.

This very exciting episode on liberal education with Professor Roosevelt Montás makes a come back this week! In this episode, I am joined by Professor Roosevelt Montás to discuss his new book, ⁠Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed my Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation.⁠ Montás, 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. Montás 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.
 Roosevelt Montás is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University.  He holds an A.B. (1995), an M.A. (1996), and a Ph.D. (2004) in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.  He was Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum at Columbia College from 2008 to 2018.  Roosevelt specializes in Antebellum American literature and culture, with a particular interest in American citizenship.  His dissertation, Rethinking America: Abolitionism and the Antebellum Transformation of the Discourse of National Identity, won Columbia University's 2004 Bancroft Award.  In 2000, he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student.  Roosevelt teaches ⁠“Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West,”⁠ a year-long course on primary texts in moral and political thought, as well as seminars in American Studies including “Freedom and Citizenship in the United States.” He is Director of the Center for American Studies' ⁠Freedom and Citizenship Program⁠ in collaboration with the ⁠Double Discovery Center⁠.  He speaks and writes on the history, meaning, and future of liberal education and is the author of ⁠Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation ⁠ (Princeton University Press, 2021). You can follow him on Twitter ⁠@ rooseveltmontas⁠ ⁠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, Psychology, and Theology⁠ (Routledge, 2018). You can follow her on Twitter ⁠@j ennfrey⁠. 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 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.

This very exciting episode on liberal education with Professor Roosevelt Montás makes a come back this week! In this episode, I am joined by Professor Roosevelt Montás to discuss his new book, Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed my Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation. Montás, 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. Montás 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.
 Roosevelt Montás is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University.  He holds an A.B. (1995), an M.A. (1996), and a Ph.D. (2004) in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.  He was Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum at Columbia College from 2008 to 2018.  Roosevelt specializes in Antebellum American literature and culture, with a particular interest in American citizenship.  His dissertation, Rethinking America: Abolitionism and the Antebellum Transformation of the Discourse of National Identity, won Columbia University's 2004 Bancroft Award.  In 2000, he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student.  Roosevelt teaches “Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West,” a year-long course on primary texts in moral and political thought, as well as seminars in American Studies including “Freedom and Citizenship in the United States.” He is Director of the Center for American Studies' Freedom and Citizenship Program in collaboration with the Double Discovery Center.  He speaks and writes on the history, meaning, and future of liberal education and is the author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation  (Princeton University Press, 2021). You can follow him on Twitter @rooseveltmontas 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, Psychology, and Theology (Routledge, 2018). 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 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.

Let's go back to the beginning, where it all began: Episode 1 on Flannery O'Connor with Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. ! In Episode 1, I speak with 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, the comic unveiling of the human person to itself, and the violence of Divine Love as a necessary antidote to human folly and brokenness. 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. ⁠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). 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 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.

Let's go back to the beginning, where it all began: Episode 1 on Flannery O'Connor with Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. !! In Episode 1, I speak with 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, the comic unveiling of the human person to itself, and the violence of Divine Love as a necessary antidote to human folly and brokenness. 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. 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). 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 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.

Please join us for the most popular of our re-runs thus far. It's the return of Episode 55 with Professor Christopher Snyder on Tolkien and Virtue Ethics! In this episode, I am joined by ⁠⁠Christopher Snyder⁠⁠, professor of history and director of British Studies at Mississippi State University, to discuss J.R.R. Tolkien's fiction and virtue ethics.  We discuss Tolkien's background , training, ⁠⁠academic work⁠⁠ and influences, how to think about his fiction and its enduring value, and what role virtue plays in ⁠⁠The Hobbit ⁠⁠and ⁠⁠The Lord of the Rings⁠⁠.  Drawing on arguments from his latest book, ⁠⁠Hobbit Virtues⁠⁠, Chris and I discuss the role of imagination in the moral life and why Tolkien isn't just or even primarily for children. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Christopher Snyder became the first dean of the Shackouls Honors College at Mississippi State University in 2011. He is Professor of History and Director of British Studies at MSU, an affiliated faculty member in the Department of English, and was a History Research Fellow at the University of Oxford from 2014 to 2019. His MA and PhD in Medieval History are from Emory University, and in addition to Emory he has taught at the College of William and Mary and at Marymount University, where he served for nine years as Chair of the Department of History and Politics and five years as Director of the Honors Program. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a Distinguished Alumnus of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, where he majored in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Dr. Snyder has authored ten books and numerous articles in the fields of archaeology, history, literary criticism, ethics, and medieval studies. His most recent book is Hobbit Virtues: Rediscovering Virtue Ethics through J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (New York and London: Pegasus/ Simon & Schuster, 2020) . Dr. Snyder has also lectured frequently at the Smithsonian Institution and has appeared on the History Channel, The Learning Channel, the National Geographic Channel, and BBC television and radio. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals and internet projects in medieval and Arthurian studies. Jennifer Frey is the incoming 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 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.

Please join us for the most popular of our re-runs thus far. It's the return of Episode 55 with Professor Christopher Snyder on Tolkien and Virtue Ethics! In this episode, I am joined by ⁠Christopher Snyder⁠, professor of history and director of British Studies at Mississippi State University, to discuss J.R.R. Tolkien's fiction and virtue ethics.  We discuss Tolkien's background , training, ⁠academic work⁠ and influences, how to think about his fiction and its enduring value, and what role virtue plays in ⁠The Hobbit ⁠and ⁠The Lord of the Rings⁠.  Drawing on arguments from his latest book, ⁠Hobbit Virtues⁠, Chris and I discuss the role of imagination in the moral life and why Tolkien isn't just or even primarily for children. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Christopher Snyder became the first dean of the Shackouls Honors College at Mississippi State University in 2011. He is Professor of History and Director of British Studies at MSU, an affiliated faculty member in the Department of English, and was a History Research Fellow at the University of Oxford from 2014 to 2019. His MA and PhD in Medieval History are from Emory University, and in addition to Emory he has taught at the College of William and Mary and at Marymount University, where he served for nine years as Chair of the Department of History and Politics and five years as Director of the Honors Program. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a Distinguished Alumnus of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, where he majored in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Dr. Snyder has authored ten books and numerous articles in the fields of archaeology, history, literary criticism, ethics, and medieval studies. His most recent book is Hobbit Virtues: Rediscovering Virtue Ethics through J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (New York and London: Pegasus/ Simon & Schuster, 2020) . Dr. Snyder has also lectured frequently at the Smithsonian Institution and has appeared on the History Channel, The Learning Channel, the National Geographic Channel, and BBC television and radio. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals and internet projects in medieval and Arthurian studies. Jennifer Frey is the incoming 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). 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 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.

We invite you to explore one of our previously aired episodes: a conversation with Dana Gioia. In this episode, I am joined by the poet and critic Dana Gioia to discuss Charles Baudelaire's famous book of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal, or The Flowers of Evil.  We tackle some big questions in this episode, such as whether and how evil can be beautiful, the nature of Catholic art and poetry, original sin, and the poet as a damned figure. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed poet and writer. He received a B.A. and M.B.A. from Stanford and an M.A. from Harvard in Comparative Literature. Gioia has published five full-length collections of verse, most recently (2016), which won the Poets' Prize as the best new book of the year. His third collection, (2001), was awarded the American Book Award. An influential critic, Gioia has published four books of essays. His controversial volume, (1992), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award. Gioia has also edited or co-edited two dozen best-selling literary anthologies, including An Introduction to Poetry (with X. J. Kennedy) and Best American Poetry 2018. His essays and memoirs have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic, Washington Post, New York Times, Hudson Review, and BBC Radio. Gioia has written four opera libretti and collaborated with musicians in genres from classical to jazz. His work has been set to music by Morten Lauridsen, Lori Laitman, Dave Brubeck, Ned Rorem, Paul Salerni, and numerous other composers. He collaborated with jazz pianist Helen Sung on her vocal album, Sung With Words (2018). His dance opera (with Paul Salerni), Haunted, premiered in 2019. Gioia also served as the California State Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2019. During his tenure he became the first laureate to visit all 58 counties of California. His statewide tour became the subject of a BBC Radio documentary. Jennifer Frey is the incoming 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. She also hosts a popular philosophy and literature podcast, Sacred and Profane Love. 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 incoming 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.

We invite you to explore one of our previously aired episodes: a conversation with Dana Gioia. In this episode, I am joined by the poet and critic Dana Gioia to discuss Charles Baudelaire's famous book of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal, or The Flowers of Evil.  We tackle some big questions in this episode, such as whether and how evil can be beautiful, the nature of Catholic art and poetry, original sin, and the poet as a damned figure. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed poet and writer. He received a B.A. and M.B.A. from Stanford and an M.A. from Harvard in Comparative Literature. Gioia has published five full-length collections of verse, most recently (2016), which won the Poets' Prize as the best new book of the year. His third collection, (2001), was awarded the American Book Award. An influential critic, Gioia has published four books of essays. His controversial volume, (1992), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award. Gioia has also edited or co-edited two dozen best-selling literary anthologies, including An Introduction to Poetry (with X. J. Kennedy) and Best American Poetry 2018. His essays and memoirs have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic, Washington Post, New York Times, Hudson Review, and BBC Radio. Gioia has written four opera libretti and collaborated with musicians in genres from classical to jazz. His work has been set to music by Morten Lauridsen, Lori Laitman, Dave Brubeck, Ned Rorem, Paul Salerni, and numerous other composers. He collaborated with jazz pianist Helen Sung on her vocal album, Sung With Words (2018). His dance opera (with Paul Salerni), Haunted, premiered in 2019. Gioia also served as the California State Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2019. During his tenure he became the first laureate to visit all 58 counties of California. His statewide tour became the subject of a BBC Radio documentary. Jennifer Frey is the incoming 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 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.

We come back to Episode 48, where I speak with Thomas Hibbs about Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, in our second re-run for the summer! In this episode, I speak with philosopher Thomas Hibbs (Baylor) about Dostoevsky'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. Jennifer Frey is the incoming 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. She also hosts a popular philosophy and literature podcast, Sacred and Profane Love. 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 incoming 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.

We come back to Episode 48, where I speak with Thomas Hibbs about Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, in our second re-run for the summer! In this episode, I speak with philosopher Thomas Hibbs (Baylor) about Dostoevsky'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. Jennifer Frey is the incoming 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. She also hosts a popular philosophy and literature podcast, Sacred and Profane Love. 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 incoming 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.

In 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.

In 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.

In this episode, I explain our recent hiatus. As I'm transitioning to my new role as inaugural dean of the Honors College at University of Tulsa, we'll be re-running our most popular episodes throughout the summer. Jennifer Frey is the incoming 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. 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 is the incoming 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.

In this episode, I explain our recent hiatus. As I'm transitioning to my new role as inaugural dean of the Honors College at University of Tulsa, we'll be re-running our most popular episodes throughout the summer. Jennifer Frey is the incoming 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. 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 incoming 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.

In this episode, Russell Hittinger and I finish our conversation on St. Augustine's Confessions and discuss the last three books. This is part three in a three part series on this book. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation! Dr. Russell Hittinger is a leading scholar of Catholic political and social thought. From 1996-2019, Dr. Hittinger was the incumbent of the William K. Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he was also a Research Professor in the School of Law. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Fordham University, Princeton University, New York University, Providence College, and Charles University in Prague. In January 2020, Dr. Hittinger gave the Aquinas Lecture at Blackfriars, Oxford. Since 2001, he is a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to which he was elected a full member (ordinarius) in 2004, and appointed to the consilium or governing board from 2006-2018. On 8 September 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Dr. Hittinger as an ordinarius in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in which he finished his ten-year term in 2019. He is currently a Fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America, where he also serves as the inaugural co-Director of the Program in Catholic Political Thought. 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, Russell Hittinger and I finish our conversation on St. Augustine's Confessions and discuss the last three books. This is part three in a three part series on this book. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation! Dr. Russell Hittinger is a leading scholar of Catholic political and social thought. From 1996-2019, Dr. Hittinger was the incumbent of the William K. Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he was also a Research Professor in the School of Law. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Fordham University, Princeton University, New York University, Providence College, and Charles University in Prague. In January 2020, Dr. Hittinger gave the Aquinas Lecture at Blackfriars, Oxford. Since 2001, he is a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to which he was elected a full member(ordinarius) in 2004, and appointed to the consilium or governing board from 2006-2018. On 8 September 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Dr. Hittinger as an ordinarius in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in which he finished his ten-year term in 2019. He is currently a Fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America, where he also serves as the inaugural co-Director of the Program in Catholic Political Thought. 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.

This lecture was given at the Catholic University of America on May 16, 2023 as part of the Thomistic Institute symposium titled "Toward a Fundamental Theology of the Priesthood." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Jennifer Frey is an associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. 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. She has published widely on virtue and moral psychology and she has co-edited three volumes on Self-Transcendence and Virtue, Practical Wisdom, and Practical Truth. Her writing has been featured in Breaking Ground, Evangelization and Culture, First Things, Fare Forward, Image, Law and Liberty, The Point, and USA Today.

In this episode, I continue my conversation with Russell Hittinger about one of the great masterworks of the Western literary tradition: St. Augustine's Confessions. In our discussion on books VI-IX, we track St. Augustine's conversion to Christianity and his mother's death. This is part two in a three part series on this book. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation! Dr. Russell Hittinger is a leading scholar of Catholic political and social thought. From 1996-2019, Dr. Hittinger was the incumbent of the William K. Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he was also a Research Professor in the School of Law. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Fordham University, Princeton University, New York University, Providence College, and Charles University in Prague. In January 2020, Dr. Hittinger gave the Aquinas Lecture at Blackfriars, Oxford. Since 2001, he is a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to which he was elected a full member (ordinarius) in 2004, and appointed to the consilium or governing board from 2006-2018. On 8 September 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Dr. Hittinger as an ordinarius in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in which he finished his ten-year term in 2019. He is currently a Fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America, where he also serves as the inaugural co-Director of the Program in Catholic Political Thought. 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 continue my conversation with Russell Hittinger about one of the great masterworks of the Western literary tradition: St. Augustine's Confessions. In our discussion on books VI-IX, we track St. Augustine's conversion to Christianity and his mother's death. This is part two in a three part series on this book. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation! Dr. Russell Hittinger is a leading scholar of Catholic political and social thought. From 1996-2019, Dr. Hittinger was the incumbent of the William K. Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he was also a Research Professor in the School of Law. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Fordham University, Princeton University, New York University, Providence College, and Charles University in Prague. In January 2020, Dr. Hittinger gave the Aquinas Lecture at Blackfriars, Oxford. Since 2001, he is a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to which he was elected a full member (ordinarius) in 2004, and appointed to the consilium or governing board from 2006-2018. On 8 September 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Dr. Hittinger as an ordinarius in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in which he finished his ten-year term in 2019. He is currently a Fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America, where he also serves as the inaugural co-Director of the Program in Catholic Political Thought. 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 professor Russell Hittinger about one of the great masterworks of the Western literary tradition: St. Augustine's Confessions. We discuss the structure of the book as a whole, its intended audience, the reasons Augustine wrote it, and its first five books, detailing Augustine's birth, boyhood, and young adulthood. This is part one in a three part series on this book. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation! Dr. Russell Hittinger is a leading scholar of Catholic political and social thought. From 1996-2019, Dr. Hittinger was the incumbent of the William K. Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he was also a Research Professor in the School of Law. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Fordham University, Princeton University, New York University, Providence College, and Charles University in Prague. In January 2020, Dr. Hittinger gave the Aquinas Lecture at Blackfriars, Oxford. Since 2001, he is a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to which he was elected a full member(ordinarius) in 2004, and appointed to the consilium or governing board from 2006-2018. On 8 September 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Dr. Hittinger as an ordinarius in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in which he finished his ten-year term in 2019. He is currently a Fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America, where he also serves as the inaugural co-Director of the Program in Catholic Political Thought. 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 professor Russell Hittinger about one of the great masterworks of the Western literary tradition: St. Augustine's Confessions. We discuss the structure of the book as a whole, its intended audience, the reasons Augustine wrote it, and its first five books, detailing Augustine's birth, boyhood, and young adulthood. This is part one in a three part series on this book. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation! Dr. Russell Hittinger is a leading scholar of Catholic political and social thought. From 1996-2019, Dr. Hittinger was the incumbent of the William K. Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he was also a Research Professor in the School of Law. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Fordham University, Princeton University, New York University, Providence College, and Charles University in Prague. In January 2020, Dr. Hittinger gave the Aquinas Lecture at Blackfriars, Oxford. Since 2001, he is a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to which he was elected a full member (ordinarius) in 2004, and appointed to the consilium or governing board from 2006-2018. On 8 September 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Dr. Hittinger as an ordinarius in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in which he finished his ten-year term in 2019. He is currently a Fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America, where he also serves as the inaugural co-Director of the Program in Catholic Political Thought. 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 professor, novelist, and critic, Randy Boyagoda, about why people of faith should read contemporary novels, the role of literature generally in the spiritual, moral, and intellectual life, and the themes of his two latest novels, Original Prin and Dante's Indiana. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Randy Boyagoda is the author of four novels, a SSHRC-supported critical biography, and a scholarly monograph. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice Selection and Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year. He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Walrus, First Things, Commonweal, Harper's, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, and Globe and Mail, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio and podcasting for the Toronto Public Library. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017 and is currently a member of The Walrus Educational Review Committee, and the boards of the Toronto International Festival of Authors and the Conference on Christianity and Literature. His fourth novel, Dante's Indiana, was published in 2021. 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. Episode Links: Original Prin https://bit.ly/3XTvcC0 Dante's Indiana https://bit.ly/3YXMyPC "Faith in Fiction" https://bit.ly/3krAw1S

In this episode, I speak with professor, novelist, and critic, Randy Boyagoda, about why people of faith should read contemporary novels, the role of literature generally in the spiritual, moral, and intellectual life, and the themes of his two latest novels, Original Prin and Dante's Indiana. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Randy Boyagoda is the author of four novels, a SSHRC-supported critical biography, and a scholarly monograph. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize, and named a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice Selection and Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year. He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Walrus, First Things, Commonweal, Harper's, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, and Globe and Mail, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio and podcasting for the Toronto Public Library. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017 and is currently a member of The Walrus Educational Review Committee, and the boards of the Toronto International Festival of Authors and the Conference on Christianity and Literature. His fourth novel, Dante's Indiana, was published in 2021. 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. Episode Links: Original Prin Dante's Indiana "Faith in Fiction"

In this episode, I speak to Anthony Domestico about the poetry of TS Eliot. We discuss Eliot the man, the critic, and the poet. We contrast the Wasteland and The Four Quartets, and discuss the reasons we prefer the latter to the former. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation! Anthony Domestico is Chair of the Literature Department at Purchase College, State University of New York and the books columnist for Commonweal. His reviews and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Baffler, Book Post, the Boston Globe, and the Times Literary Supplement, among other places. His book, Poetry and Theology in the Modernist Period, is available from Johns Hopkins University Press. 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. Episode Links: Words Alone, by Denis Donoghue https://amzn.to/3W8lquU Dig it up Again, Ryan Ruby https://bit.ly/3kl99WB Joanna Winant on difficulty https://bit.ly/3QK3Wnv Tradition and the Individual Talent https://bit.ly/2YONtSv Portrait of the Artist as a Grown Man https://bit.ly/3H7Qqa3

In this episode, I speak to Anthony Domestico about the poetry of TS Eliot. We discuss Eliot the man, the critic, and the poet. We contrast the Wasteland and The Four Quartets, and discuss the reasons we prefer the latter to the former. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation! Anthony Domestico is Chair of the Literature Department at Purchase College, State University of New York and the books columnist for Commonweal. His reviews and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Baffler, Book Post, the Boston Globe, and the Times Literary Supplement, among other places. His book, Poetry and Theology in the Modernist Period, is available from Johns Hopkins University Press. 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. Episode Links: Words Alone, by Denis Donoghue Dig it up Again, Ryan Ruby Joanna Winant on difficulty Tradition and the Individual Talent Portrait of the Artist as a Grown Man

In this episode, I speak with fellow philosopher (and substack writer) Justin E. H. Smith about the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. This is our final episode of 2022! As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Justin E. H. Smith is professor of philosophy in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Paris. In 2019-20, he was the John and Constance Birkelund Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers of the New York Public Library. He has written many books, including Irrationality: The Dark Side of Reason and Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life. He also authors a substack, which you can subscribe to at https://justinehsmith.substack.com. 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 fellow philosopher (and substack writer) Justin E. H. Smith about the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. This is our final episode of 2022! As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Justin E. H. Smith is professor of philosophy in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Paris. In 2019-20, he was the John and Constance Birkelund Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers of the New York Public Library. He has written many books, including Irrationality: The Dark Side of Reason and Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life. He also authors a substack, which you can subscribe to here. 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 am joined by Sam Filby, a graduate student in philosophy at Northwestern University. We discuss JM Coetzee's novel, Elizabeth Costello, which is a fictionalized account of a writer who gives a series of lectures on the ethics of eating animals. We simply try to figure out what is going on in this puzzling novel of bad ideas. Sam Filby is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Northwestern University. His dissertation concerns the relationship between history and ethical concepts, with particular emphasis on the work of G.E.M. Anscombe and Friedrich Nietzsche. Outside of ethics, he has published on philosophy of literature and philosophy of religion. 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 am joined by Sam Filby, a graduate student in philosophy at Northwestern University. We discuss JM Coetzee's novel, Elizabeth Costello, which is a fictionalized account of a writer who gives a series of lectures on the ethics of eating animals. We simply try to figure out what is going on in this puzzling novel of bad ideas. Sam Filby is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Northwestern University. His dissertation concerns the relationship between history and ethical concepts, with particular emphasis on the work of G.E.M. Anscombe and Friedrich Nietzsche. Outside of ethics, he has published on philosophy of literature and philosophy of religion. 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 am joined by the poet and critic Dana Gioia to discuss Charles Baudelaire's famous book of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal, or The Flowers of Evil. We tackle some big questions in this episode, such as whether and how evil can be beautiful, the nature of Catholic art and poetry, original sin, and the poet as a damned figure. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed poet and writer. He received a B.A. and M.B.A. from Stanford and an M.A. from Harvard in Comparative Literature. Gioia has published five full-length collections of verse, most recently 99 Poems: New & Selected (2016), which won the Poets' Prize as the best new book of the year. His third collection, Interrogations at Noon (2001), was awarded the American Book Award. An influential critic, Gioia has published four books of essays. His controversial volume, Can Poetry Matter? (1992), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award. Gioia has also edited or co-edited two dozen best-selling literary anthologies, including An Introduction to Poetry (with X. J. Kennedy) and Best American Poetry 2018. His essays and memoirs have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic, Washington Post, New York Times, Hudson Review, and BBC Radio. Gioia has written four opera libretti and collaborated with musicians in genres from classical to jazz. His work has been set to music by Morten Lauridsen, Lori Laitman, Dave Brubeck, Ned Rorem, Paul Salerni, and numerous other composers. He collaborated with jazz pianist Helen Sung on her vocal album, Sung With Words (2018). His dance opera (with Paul Salerni), Haunted, premiered in 2019. Gioia also served as the California State Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2019. During his tenure he became the first laureate to visit all 58 counties of California. His statewide tour became the subject of a BBC Radio documentary. 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 am joined by Christopher Snyder, professor of history and director of British Studies at Mississippi State University, to discuss J.R.R. Tolkien's fiction and virtue ethics. We discuss Tolkien's background , training, academic work and influences, how to think about his fiction and its enduring value, and what role virtue plays in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Drawing on arguments from his latest book, Hobbit Virtues, Chris and I discuss the role of imagination in the moral life and why Tolkien isn't just or even primarily for children. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Christopher Snyder became the first dean of the Shackouls Honors College at Mississippi State University in 2011. He is Professor of History and Director of British Studies at MSU, an affiliated faculty member in the Department of English, and was a History Research Fellow at the University of Oxford from 2014 to 2019. His MA and PhD in Medieval History are from Emory University, and in addition to Emory he has taught at the College of William and Mary and at Marymount University, where he served for nine years as Chair of the Department of History and Politics and five years as Director of the Honors Program. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a Distinguished Alumnus of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, where he majored in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Dr. Snyder has authored ten books and numerous articles in the fields of archaeology, history, literary criticism, ethics, and medieval studies. His most recent book is Hobbit Virtues: Rediscovering Virtue Ethics through J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (New York and London: Pegasus/ Simon & Schuster, 2020). Dr. Snyder has also lectured frequently at the Smithsonian Institution and has appeared on the History Channel, The Learning Channel, the National Geographic Channel, and BBC television and radio. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals and internet projects in medieval and Arthurian studies. 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 team up again with Karen Swallow Prior, this time to discuss what many people call "the great American novel" Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. We talk about sin, guilt, and repression, and how Hawthorne's story is more complicated and interesting than most people make it out to be. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Karen Swallow Prior is Research Professor of English Literature and Christianity and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T. S. Poetry Press, 2012), Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (Thomas Nelson, 2014), and On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books (Brazos, 2018). She is co-editor of Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues (Zondervan 2019) and has contributed to numerous other books. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Relevant, Think Christian, The Gospel Coalition, Religion News Service, Books and Culture and other places. She and her husband live on a 100-year old homestead in central Virginia with sundry horses, dogs, and chickens. And lots of books. 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 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.

Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Jenn Frey about her latest Thomistic Institute lecture, "What Makes a Person Good? Aquinas and the Cardinal Virtues." Off-Campus Conversations with Fr. Gregory Pine, Ep. 001: Prof. Jenn Frey on Aquinas and the Cardinal Virtues You can listen to the original lecture here: https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/what-makes-a-person-good-aquinas-and-the-cardinal-virtues-prof-jennifer-frey For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Jennifer A. Frey (University of South Carolina) received her BA from Indiana University in Bloomington Indiana in 2000, and her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh in 2012. In 2013 she was Collegiate Assistant Professor and Harper Schmidt Fellow at the University of Chicago prior to taking up her current appointment as Assistant Professor in the Philosophy department at the University of South Carolina. Jennifer's research interests lie at the intersection of virtue ethics and action theory. She has publications in The Journal of the History of Philosophy, The Journal of Analytic Philosophy, and in several edited volumes. She is the recipient of several grants, including coa 2.1 million dollar project awarded by the John Templeton Foundation, titled "Virtue, Happiness, and Meaning in Life." She is currently at work on three separate book projects.

This lecture was given on April 28, 2022 at the College of William and Mary. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Jennifer Frey is an associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. 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. She has published widely on virtue and moral psychology and she has co-edited three volumes on Self-Transcendence and Virtue, Practical Wisdom, and Practical Truth. Her writing has been featured in Breaking Ground, Evangelization and Culture, First Things, Fare Forward, Image, Law and Liberty, The Point, and USA Today.

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

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

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

This lecture was given on March 18, 2022 at Auburn University. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Jennifer Frey is an associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. 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. She has published widely on virtue and moral psychology and she has co-edited three volumes on Self-Transcendence and Virtue, Practical Wisdom, and Practical Truth. Her writing has been featured in Breaking Ground, Evangelization and Culture, First Things, Fare Forward, Image, Law and Liberty, The Point, and USA Today.

This lecture was given on February 28, 2022 at Indiana University. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Jennifer Frey is an associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. 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. She has published widely on virtue and moral psychology and she has co-edited three volumes on Self-Transcendence and Virtue, Practical Wisdom, and Practical Truth. Her writing has been featured in Breaking Ground, Evangelization and Culture, First Things, Fare Forward, Image, Law and Liberty, The Point, and USA Today.

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. Click here to find the podcast on your preferred streaming platform, my social media profiles, and recent episodes! Subscribe Become a Patron! Preview on iTunes 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