Close Readings, Expanded Horizons: Stephanie Johnson and Erin VanLaningham

How might literary studies expand our understanding of vocation? In this episode we hear from two English professors who have explored this question in depth. Stephanie Johnson (The College of St. Scholastica) and Erin Van Laningham (Loras College) are co-editors of a new book on the subject: Cultivating Vocation in Literary Studies (Edinburgh University Press, 2022). Together, they observe that the imaginative work required by the close reading of texts can help us as we discern our callings—including those moments that the author George Eliot appreciated as our inevitable “blunders” in life. This new collection of essays, and our conversation, reveal how disciplinary expertise can expand our understanding of what it means to “dwell in possibility.”