Faculty Profile

Faculty Member Explores the Big Meaning Behind Little Things

Laura Forsberg, Ph.D.

It’s time to sweat the small stuff, says Laura Forsberg, Ph.D., associate professor of English.

In a new book, “Worlds Beyond: Miniatures and Victorian Fiction,” published by Yale University Press in May, Forsberg takes a closer look at miniature making in 19th century England, and what the phenomenon says both about that society and our own.

It’s a project that Forsberg said has been in the works since 2011 and has taken her to libraries and archives across the globe, thumbing through complete recreations of notable books, sometimes so small they are unreadable, and inspecting toys and miniature portraits. Though long dismissed as ephemeral or as the hobby of women at the time, Forsberg argues these works are instead significant as a representation of where art and technology, science and enchantment intersect.

“I think there’s a traditional narrative of the Victorian period that says that the 19th century is when we stop believing in enchantment, that science comes in and eradicates all of our fantasies and it introduces this new sort of empirical approach,” she said. “What miniatures do is suggest there’s something else going on at the same time.”

But the unorthodox approach has required changing some minds. She recalled specifically weathering criticisms from Harvard English graduate students because her work centered objects instead of authors. She kept going, and that new perspective eventually led to interest from publishers.

“It became very clear that doing something that mattered to me, doing something that felt right, opened up possibilities that I wouldn’t have had otherwise,” she said.

FACULTY KUDOS

Risa Stein, Ph.D., professor of psychology, is featured in a documentary, “American Happiness,” which shares how everyday Americans in all 50 states have found happiness and fulfillment.

Michael Stellern, Ph.D., professor of economics, was interviewed by KMBC TV for a story looking back at the initial collapse of the stock market in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jennifer Wessol, Ph.D., associate professor of nursing, co-authored a manuscript titled “Clinical Reasoning, Judgment, and Safe Medication Administration Practices in Senior Nursing Students” that has been accepted for publication in Nurse Educator. The same research findings were co-presented at the Midwest Nursing Research Society as a poster presentation titled “Clinical Reasoning, Judgment, and Safe Medication Administration Practices in Senior Nursing Students.”