Musical Dependence: What's Behind It and How We Can Move Beyond It – Sr. Anna Wray, O.P.

Sr. Anna Wray argues that many people are caught in a “musical dependence” that uses music to make ordinary life merely tolerable, a mere toleration which can transformed into true enjoyment by means of asceticism and an education in genuine enjoyment.

This lecture was given on November 12th, 2025, at Catholic University of America.

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About the Speaker:

Sister Anna Wray is a native of Connecticut and a member of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia of Nashville, TN. Sister received her PhD in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, having written her dissertation on Aristotle’s account of the activity of contemplation. Sister is an assistant professor on the faculty of CUA's School of Philosophy in Washington, DC, where she regularly teaches courses in rhetoric, philosophy of religion, and philosophical psychology. She is also an adjunct professor for Aquinas College, where she teaches metaphysics and epistemology to her sisters in formation. Her research and conversational interests include imagination and attention in human agency and speech, the effects of technology on human agency, and form as function and unifying activity.

Keywords: Asceticism, Aristotle, Delight, Entelechaic Activity, Liturgy, Music, Musical Dependence, Silence, Thomistic Anthropology, Worship