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Prof. Nicole Simek honored with Graves Award

Nicole Simek

WALLA WALLA — Nicole Simek, assistant professor of foreign languages and literatures (French) and general studies, has been selected to receive a Graves Award in the Humanities in recognition and support of her research project titled “A Comparative Study of Humor in French Caribbean Literature.” 

The Graves Awards, which are administered by Pomona College and presented biennially, are designed to support the work of faculty members who are in the first decade of their teaching careers and whose scholarship will enhance their classroom instruction. 

“I'm very honored to have this opportunity, and the resources it will provide will allow me to incorporate a wide range of new materials and observations into my writing and my courses.”

 She will use the funds that accompany the award to support travel and research toward enhanced teaching. Her research focuses on Francophone Caribbean literature. 

“Professor Simek displays the virtues of the teacher/scholar model,” said Tim Kaufman-Osborn, provost and dean of faculty. “She constantly explores new ways to weave her scholarship into her pedagogy, and that benefits her students as well as her colleagues at Whitman College and in the larger intellectual community.” 

“While the act of engaging in research influences how I think about pedagogy and course design, my research also informs the content of my classes directly, both in my advanced French and World Literature courses and at the beginning and intermediate levels,” said Simek, who holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University. “My students take a keen interest in the relationship between language and culture, as well as in the issues of racial, cultural and economic equality at the center of political and literary discourses in the French Antilles.”

The sabbatical project that the Graves Award will help support, a comparative study of humor in French Caribbean Literature, began as a collaborative student-teacher research project at Whitman in the summer of 2007, funded by a college-awarded Perry Grant. It has since developed into a book project centered on humor as a mode of knowing. 

“The study takes as its broad topic humor as a particular form of philosophy, one perhaps akin to the type of laughter proposed by Martinican author Patrick Chamoiseau in his novel “Solibo Magnificent” as an alternative to ‘rational,’ objectivizing discourses,” Simek said. 

 The Graves Award will help fund a trip in summer 12010 to Martinique to collect locally published print and audio materials often unavailable outside the country or on the Web. In particular, Simek plans to explore Creole language resources; attend Fort de France’s annual cultural festival, an event featuring theatrical, musical and dance performances as well as art exhibits; observe current debates about the political status of the island and its degree of autonomy from the French State; and visit various historical sites and monuments across the island.

Previous Whitman recipients include David Schmitz, Dana Burgess, Jonathan Walters, Dennis Crockett, and Robert Morrison.

Published on Feb 8, 2010
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