Insights and Conversations from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE)
The final episode of this season’s Callings podcast features a conversation with Rainn Wilson, who is best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on The Office.
The final episode of this season’s Callings podcast features a conversation with Rainn Wilson, who is best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on The Office. Rainn is an actor, producer, writer, and cofounder of the media company SoulPancake. His most recent book is Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution.
Vocation studies can tend toward the exalted, the passionate, the high and the noble, and it can take itself so seriously that, like a tragic hero, it becomes blind to a fundamental irony, namely that it can set students up to do everything but live their current, actual lives.
Recently, while listening to a series of lectures on Shakespeare and Politics by Paul Cantor, I was struck by the usefulness of Romeo and Juliet in thinking about vocation. Cantor explores the distinction between tragedy and comedy by comparing Romeo and Juliet to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, both written in the same year and both focused on young lovers and romantic love. It struck me that comedy has a long-haul wisdom and love of the ordinary that is all too often absent from talk and teaching about vocation. Vocation studies can tend toward the exalted, the passionate, the high and the noble. It can take itself so seriously that, like a tragic hero, it becomes blind to a fundamental irony, namely that it can set students up to do everything but live their current, actual lives.
Continue reading “Comedy or Tragedy: Some Shakespearean Wisdom for Vocation”