ONLINE: When Work Doesn’t Work: Grappling with Vocation and the “Good Life”

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Pam Strohl

Author Christine Jeske is an associate professor at Wheaton College.

Sometimes needing to be happy in your job becomes less important than having a job at all. Maybe those two things don't need to be mutually exclusive, though. In this livestream interview sponsored by Upper House and the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development, anthropologist and author Christine Jeske will share insights about work and the meaning of the “good life,” much of it gathered from interviews she conducted amid some of the highest unemployment and entrenched racism in the world. Her book, The Laziness Myth: Narratives of Work and the Good Life in South Africa (Cornell, 2020), examines how cultural narratives and systemic barriers influence the ways we experience work and how prevalent myths shape (and distort) peoples’ beliefs about vocation. Jeske is an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Wheaton College. Register here.

press release: Upper House and the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development are partnering on a live-stream interview with anthropologist and author, Christine Jeske. Jeske will share insights about work and the meaning of the “good life” gleaned from people dealing with extreme unemployment and racism—featured in her 2020 book, “The Laziness Myth: Narratives of Work and the Good Life in South Africa.”