— LISTEE'S SPOTLIGHT —

Dr. Brian Abel Ragen is an emeritus professor of English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where he taught American literature, the Bible, and the Great Books curriculum. He joined the faculty in 1988, rising to full professor in 2000, and was granted emeritus status in 2013. Before this role, Dr. Ragen lectured at Bryn Mawr College and Princeton University, where he taught while completing his Doctor of Philosophy in the early 1980s. He has published books on Flannery O’Connor and Tom Wolfe, articles on literature, hymnody, liturgy, and heraldry, and served as editor of Papers on Language and Literature from 1992 to 2008, a position he considered a career highlight. His love for learning was inspired by his aunt and guardian, a history professor at San Diego State University, and he relished inspiring the same curiosity in students in survey courses, many of whom were encountering the literary canon for the first time. Recently, Dr. Ragen was presented with a service medal with three bars representing 25 years of service to the Order of St. John by the Duke of Gloucester and a campaign medal from the Order of Malta with a COVID-19 Clasp for his mobile service during the height of the health crisis.