Flannery on Art and Truth – Prof. Jennifer Frey

Prof. Jennifer Frey explores Flannery O’Connor’s bold claim that art can reveal truth in a way philosophy cannot, and shows how her fiction turns beauty, form, and imagination into a distinctive kind of knowledge.

This lecture was given on February 7th, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies.

To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod.

About the Speaker:

Jennifer A. Frey is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tulsa. She previously served as the inaugural Dean of the Honors College. Before coming to Oklahoma, 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 College of Arts and Sciences. 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 Society for the Liberal Arts. 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: Self Transcendence and Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology; Practical Truth; and Practical Wisdom (OUP, forthcoming 2025). Her writing has been featured in Breaking Ground, First Things, Image, Law and Liberty, The NewYork Times, The Point, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. She lives with her husband and six children in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Keywords: Art, Aesthetic Cognitivism, Flannery O’Connor, Fiction, Imagination, Literary Form, Parker’s Back, Practical Truth, Truth, Virtue