Sacred and Profane Love

In this episode, I speak with Stephen Karian, renowned scholar of 18th century British literature, on the poems of Jonathan Swift, the promise and perils of satire, and the pleasures of reading profane poetry written by one of the great Divines.  I hope you enjoy our conversation. Read along with us at Poetry Foundation.

In this episode, I am joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carl Phillips to discuss poetry, classic texts, art, and truth. I hope you enjoy our conversation!

In this episode, I speak with the classicist Julia Hejduk on Ovid's The Art of Love. I hope you enjoy our conversation!    

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.

Political theorist Patrick Deneen delves into Don DeLillo's 'White Noise,' unpacking existential themes amid modern distractions. The discussion reveals the absurdities of contemporary life as seen through the lens of the protagonist, Jack Gladney, and his unconventional family. Deneen highlights consumer culture's chaos and the quest for meaning in relationships, while reflecting on memory, love, and mortality. The interplay of humor and deep philosophical inquiry offers a thought-provoking take on how literature mirrors our societal struggles.

Six years ago I launched a literature, philosophy, and theology podcast.  I had no assumptions that anyone would listen to it; it was an output for a grant project on virtue, happiness, and meaning of life. Today, I am thrilled to announce the launch of season 5 of Sacred and Profane Love, now fully supported by The University of Tulsa, where I am privileged to serve as dean of their Honors College. In this episode, I explain the hiatus and share some exciting news about the podcast, including our new friends over at Switchyard. Learn more at switchyardtulsa.com.

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.

Throwback to the big five-oh: Episode 50 with Zena Hitz and Chad Wellmon! On April 26, 2022, ⁠The Institute for Human Ecology⁠ at the Catholic University of America hosted a launch event to reveal the new design and website of Sacred and Profane Love. I am pleased to share the audio of that event as episode 50, but you can also watch a video of it ⁠here⁠. This event, with ⁠Zena Hitz⁠ and Chad Wellmon, was titled “Are the Humanities in Crisis” and the two starting points for the conversation were two books that we have already discussed separately on the podcast: Zena’s ⁠Lost in Thought⁠ and Chad’s ⁠Permanent Crisis⁠. I wrote about the first book ⁠here⁠, the second book ⁠here⁠, discussed the first book ⁠here⁠, and discussed the second book ⁠here⁠.  It seems fitting that our fiftieth episode should get into the very issues that gave rise to the impetus to start the podcast in the first place, which was and remains the need to show the value of humanistic inquiry and reflection, both inside and outside of the academy.  As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Roosevelt Montás, a Dominican-born academic and advocate for Great Books, discusses his transformative journey from a rural village to Columbia University. He argues that liberal education, particularly through Great Books, empowers historically marginalized students. Montás critiques the decline of holistic education and defends the relevance of classical texts against claims of elitism. He emphasizes the need for effective teaching methods and accessibility in the humanities, championing a balanced approach that prepares students for both academic rigor and practical careers.

Throwback to our first episode recorded with a live audience: Dr. Cornel West on James Baldwin! I am pleased to share a very special episode of Sacred and Profane Love, our first episode recorded in front of a live audience, with the amazing Dr. Cornel West! The context for this episode is that the Classic Learning Test (which has sponsored several episodes this season, and on whose board of academic advisors I happily serve) held its third annual higher education summit in beautiful Annapolis, Maryland, and invited me to record an episode for the educators who had gathered for three wonderful days to discuss aspects of the summit’s theme: "Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” The result is the conversation that is episode 41, in which Cornel West and I discuss James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and Go Tell it on the Mountain. Cornel argues that Baldwin is a “Socratic prophet” and a “love warrior”, and that if we only approach him through a political lens we will miss or misunderstand so much of what he has to say. Cornel helpfully traces out some of Baldwin’s main influences: From Conrad and James to Mahalia Jackson and Ray Charles, but argues that, in the end, Go Tell it on the Mountain is a profoundly Augustinian novel. As always, I hope you enjoy our conversation.