Diana Senechal, whose frequent contributions and comments enliven this blog has been named the 2011 recipient of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities. The award from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture recognizes an “emerging leader in the humanities” and will be presented to Diana on October 26 at the Dallas Institute. The Institute’s announcement reads:
“The Hiett Prize is among the nation’s most prestigious honors in the humanities. The $50,000 annual award was created by The Dallas Institute in 2004 in collaboration with philanthropist Kim Hiett Jordan to recognize a person who has not yet reached his or her potential, but whose work in the humanities shows extraordinary promise and is already making a difference in the way we think about the world. The purpose of the Hiett Prize is to encourage future leaders in the humanities—recognizing their achievement and their promise and assisting their work through a cash award. Overall, it represents the counterpart of lifetime achievement awards by aiming at the discovery of new talent in the humanities on its way toward full maturity.
A former New York city public school teacher and a keen observer of classroom practice and academic life. Her many contributions to this blog challenge classroom orthodoxies on curriculum, assessment, and teaching practices. Her most recent post offered a critique of Steven Brill’s Class Warfare. A full collection of her blog posts is available here. Her debut book Republic of Noise: The Loss of Solitude in Schools and Culture, will be published in January.
“Diana Senechal is a rare find: she is not only a scholar of Slavic Languages and Literatures but also a brilliant mind in other literatures, poetry, philosophy, mathematics, science, technology, theology and music,” said J. Larry Allums Ph.D., Executive Director of The Dallas Institute, in announcing her selection for the Hiett Prize. “Her distinctive achievements and original plans for future projects in the humanities made such a resounding impact on our selection committee that they were unanimous in their final decision that she had to be the recipient of this year’s Hiett Prize.”
A singular honor for an extraordinary scholar. Take a bow, Diana!
Brava! They chose the right person. Congratulations, Diana.
Comment by Nancy Flanagan — September 14, 2011 @ 11:28 am
Congratulations, Diane!!! What an honor. So where are we going to dinner?
Comment by Paul Hoss — September 14, 2011 @ 5:15 pm
[...] Diana Senechal, an education wonk who taught in New York, won a prestigious prize. (Core Knowledge) [...]
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[...] Diana Senechal, an education wonk who taught in New York, won a prestigious prize. (Core Knowledge) [...]
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[...] Kudos to Diana Senechal! TCKB: The award from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture recognizes an “emerging leader in the humanities” and will be presented to Diana on October 26 at the Dallas Institute. [...]
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Awesome news, Diana! Couldn’t have happened to a nicer (or, more appropriately, smarter) person.
Comment by Miss Eyre — September 14, 2011 @ 7:30 pm
They could not have chosen better! I am really glad for you, Diana – and look forward to read the upcoming book.
Comment by andrei radulescu-banu — September 14, 2011 @ 8:40 pm
Congratulations, Diana! Still excited to get your insights on solitude — time for me to pre-order the book!
Comment by Carl Rosin — September 14, 2011 @ 10:32 pm
A well deserved award. Speaking as a layman and parent with no teaching background (other than tutoring freshman composition in college and teaching writing to co-workers), I have learned much from reading Diana’s writings on this blog.
Diana, you are well versed in imaginative literature as a scholar and teacher. I have a small favor to ask: can you explain to me why I, or anyone, should read great literature?
My intellectual interests lean strongly toward non-fiction: history, economics, philosophy, etc. It’s fairly easy to show the practical benefits of those studies for life as a voting citizen and as a living human being.
But I can’t articulate the value of literature. I know that I like it, and I’m the organizer/moderator for a classic novels discussion group. We recently read “The Grapes of Wrath” just after I finished two historical books on that era: Conrad Black’s long biography of FDR, and Amity Schlae’s “The Forgotten Man”. The Steinbeck novel gave me an emotional feel for that time period that the two non-fiction books didn’t.
Is that emotional feel important? Why else read great novels? I wonder if my financial professional mind is too literal and/or blockheaded to fully grasp serious literature. It’s like I know intellectually the value of serious fiction, but I don’t feel this value viscerally like I do with the non-fiction I read.
Your advice could greatly benefit me and my 13 year old son. Is there hope for me?
Comment by John Webster — September 15, 2011 @ 9:02 am
Thanks to everyone for the congratulations! And thanks to Robert for keeping this wonderful blog going.
John, thank you for your question. I have been thinking about this a lot. There isn’t a single or complete answer, but here’s one way of looking at it.
Literature can bring you to a certain kind of truth by jogging the mind and emotions–by confronting you with things that you know but don’t usually see, or things unknown but somehow recognizable. This comes from the language and structure of a work as well as its subject. It is a subtle thing, hard to put into a statement, but a work of literature can leave you with a sense of having lived what you have already lived, but more vividly, more knowingly–and it can bring other worlds into your own (as can nonfiction, but in a different way).
But to arrive at that, you have to sink into the literature. It is to be read not just for meaning but for rhythm and image and sound, which are part of the meaning. That is what literature class is for. The teacher, who knows the works, can pose questions and draw attention to interesting passages. The students start to learn how to take a work on its own terms–how to recognize its structure, its eccentricities, its life. The classroom makes room and time and wisdom for this.
I remember the first time I read Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying in high school–how closely we read the first chapter, told in Darl’s voice, and how much we were able to glean from those few pages. This was because we took time with it and because the teacher, who had read and thought about Faulkner for years, knew how to lead the discussion without telling us what to find.
There’s also the resonance that builds when you come to know literature. Literature plays on literature so much that you need a body of knowledge in order to understand it at certain levels. This builds over time. For instance, now that I am rereading Dostoevsky, I see hints of Gogol that I didn’t see before. Those hints of Gogol (and divergences from Gogol) have much to do with the meaning of these works.
There’s more to say about the subject, and my thoughts about it are still forming. I hope this is helpful as a start.
Comment by Diana Senechal — September 15, 2011 @ 10:07 am
Congratulations, Diana!
What a wonderful honor.
Comment by Claus von Zastrow — September 15, 2011 @ 2:09 pm
Thank you, Claus! Good to hear from you!
Comment by Diana Senechal — September 15, 2011 @ 7:40 pm
Congrats, Diana! They picked exactly the right person.
Comment by Rachel Levy — September 16, 2011 @ 11:34 am
Thank you, Rachel!
Comment by Diana Senechal — September 16, 2011 @ 8:00 pm
What a tremendous honor for a tremendously talented woman. Congratulations to you Diana.
Comment by Rita Solnet — October 4, 2011 @ 4:35 pm
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