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...
Jan 16, 2023•1 hr 38 min
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 man...
Dec 30, 2022•1 hr 32 min
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, w...
Dec 16, 2022•1 hr 25 min
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 Har...
Dec 02, 2022•1 hr 12 min
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 t...
Nov 01, 2022•1 hr 10 min
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...
Oct 14, 2022•1 hr 16 min
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. Pau...
Sep 30, 2022•1 hr
In this episode, I speak with my friends, Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP and Fr. Jonah Teller, OP about the relationship between art, truth, and beauty, sacred and profane music, how music might be integral to religious life, and whether the banjo is beautiful. Long time listeners will remember Thomas Joseph from our very first episode on Flannery O'Connor, where we discuss what she meant by calling herself a "Hillbilly Thomist;" and since I consider myself something of a Hillbilly Thomist myself, ...
Sep 16, 2022•52 min
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 ...
Jul 11, 2022•1 hr 36 min
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 Los...
Jul 01, 2022•1 hr 20 min
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 ei...
May 20, 2022•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 48
In this episode, I speak with philosopher Thomas Hibbs (Baylor) about Dostoyevsky's famous novel, Crime and Punishment. We discuss how Raskolnikov gets trapped in various philosophical theories he has embraced, and what might help him go from theory to authentic human life again. Along the way, we discuss the limitations of philosophy, the importance of literature as an antidote to modern moral theorizing, and the genre of confessions. And, of course, we talk about suffering, and why Raskolnikov...
Apr 28, 2022•1 hr 16 min
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 tryi...
Mar 18, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 47
In this episode, I speak with Katy Carl, who is the editor in chief of Dappled Things and also the author of As Earth Without Water , to discuss Henry James's novella, Washington Square and R.R. Reno's essay, Duty, the Soul of Beauty . After a great deal of back and forth, we come to the conclusion that what the novella shows is that mere duty, in absence of well ordered loves and the habits of attention that come with it, can be a destructive force in family and social life. Katy Carl is the ed...
Feb 04, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 45
In this episode, I am joined by Professor Roosevelt Montas to discuss his new book Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation. Montas, a Dominican born American academic, makes the compelling case that study of the Great Books is potentially transformative, especially for students from working class communities or who are members of historically marginalized communities. Montas further argues that the future of the Humanities in this country d...
Jan 14, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 45
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Kevin Kambo about Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, in light of an essay by Louise Cowan titled "The Tragic Abyss." Cowan argues that tragedy is "a liturgical confrontation of a deep seated dread which, when brought to light, can be borne only through the medium of poetic language." We discuss the nature of the tragic, which always involves a moment of "unmasking" and a peering into the dark abyss; we discuss what tragic wisdom is and how you could possibly gain it; and w...
Dec 31, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 44
In this episode, I speak with the president of the University of Tulsa, Brad Carson, about Allen 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. Read more about Brad Carson and myself on The Virtue Blog with t...
Dec 07, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 43
In this episode, I speak with professor of theology Fritz Bauerschmidt about Graham Greene's novel, The Heart of the Matter. We discuss the moral psychology of sin, and how it is that human beings are able to knowingly act against their own good (in this case: knowingly and deliberatively choose their own eternal damnation). How can someone find what is evil good? The answer in this case is a deft exploration of the interplay between pride and pity, self-deception and self-conceit. Read more abo...
Nov 05, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 42
I am pleased to share a very special episode of Sacred and Profane, our first episode recorded in front of a live audience, and 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 wonder...
Oct 21, 2021•1 hr 7 min
In this episode, I speak with the journalist Damon Linker about the Pulitzer prize winning American playwright, Eugene O'Neill. Our conversation mostly centers around A Long Day's Journey Into Night, the semi-autobiographical account of the tortured dynamics within in his own family. We discuss O'Neill's uniquely Catholic variety of atheism, of how his work resonates with themes from Simone Weil, in her essay, "Literature and Morals," the difference between a transcendence that orders the self t...
Oct 05, 2021•1 hr 30 min
In this episode, I speak with Michial Farmer about the philosopher and playwright Gabriel Marcel--more specifically, we discuss his play, Thirst, and one of his essays, "The Mystery of the Family." We talk about how Marcel's plays give him the materials for his later philosophy, and how Marcel differs from other existentialist philosophers, like Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Kierkegaard.
Sep 20, 2021•1 hr
In this episode, I speak with the writer Nick Ripatrazone about the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of the authors featured in his latest book, Wild Belief . We discuss the spiritual dimensions of wilderness and how the contemplation of the natural world can have transcendent dimensions.
Aug 29, 2021•56 min
Sometimes, you just need to do something fun, and this episode reflects one of those times. I was in DC this summer for a week teaching, so I popped into the Hillsdale College recording studio (where I've been before to chat Walker Percy) to talk with one of my favorite children's lit authors, Matthew Mehan. We discuss children's lit generally and also discuss his own books (which I highly recommend!): The Handsome Little Cygnet and Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals.
Aug 16, 2021•41 min
In this episode, I speak with podcast regular (see episode 14 on Walker Percy ), Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson, about Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces . We discuss one of the greatest literary figures of all time, Ignatius J. Reilly, “slob extraordinary, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas all rolled into one” and his “great gaseous rages and lunatic adventures.” We discuss why a recent New Yorker hit piece on Ig...
Aug 02, 2021•58 min
In this episode, I am joined by Professor Thomas Pfau (Duke University) to discuss the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz. We talk about his realism--i.e., his conviction that the task of poetry is to convey the truth by getting us to pay careful attention to reality. We discuss his philosophical and theological influences--Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Weil--and how these show up in his poems. For Milosz, poetry is the habit of accurate vision--we can only capture the real by looking. Therefore poetry is...
Jun 25, 2021•1 hr 9 min
In this episode, literary critic Morten Høi Jensen and I discuss the Danish novelist and poet, Jens Peter Jacobsen, and his beautiful novel, Niels Lyhne. Niels is a man searching for love and for God, but who finds that God does not answer his prayers and concludes that the universe is without a creator and cannot offer us any consolation. Originally titled The Atheist, Jacobsen's novel is an honest exploration of atheism and its paradoxical nature as parasitic upon the faith it rejects and a ne...
Jun 01, 2021•1 hr 23 min
OK, friends, we are finally in Paradise, with our faithful guides Beatrice, St. Bernard, and of course, Professor Matthew Rothaus Moser. It turns out that perfect happiness is resting, delighting, and dwelling in the good. How does Dante manage to write 33 more cantos about rest? You should listen to find out, of course!
May 17, 2021•1 hr 43 min
2021 marks the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death in Ravenna. This is the second of three episodes exploring Dante’s The Divine Comedy , with Professor Matthew Rothaus Moser (Theology, Honors College, Azusa Pacific University). In this episode, we discuss Dante’s vision of Purgatory, a place where sin is healed and the soul purified, so that a person can become truly free to enjoy the good. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Apr 12, 2021•1 hr 24 min
In this episode, I am joined by one of the founding editors of The Point, Jon Baskin, to discuss the prospects of philosophical literary criticism and how we can apply such criticism to the fiction of David Foster Wallace. Baskin elaborates his ideas in a book I highly recommend, Ordinary Unhappiness: The Therapeutic Fiction of David Foster Wallace. Jon and I discuss Wittgenstein, Iris Murdoch, Stanley Cavell, Robert Pippin, and of course, David Foster Wallace. I hope you enjoy our conversation....
Mar 16, 2021•1 hr 24 min
2021 marks the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri's death in Ravenna. This is the first of three episodes exploring Dante's The Divine Comedy , with Professor Matthew Rothaus Moser (Theology, Honors College, Azusa Pacific University). In this episode, we discuss Dante's vision of Hell as a place where the truth of one's desires are finally revealed to oneself. In Dante's Hell, people get what they really want and deserve; since what they want is a distortion of what is truly good, the realizat...
Mar 01, 2021•1 hr 33 min
