Graves Award in the Humanities to Bryan Sebok

Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies Dr. Bryan Sebok has been awarded a 2017-19 Graves Award.  Administered by Pomona College and under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Arnold L. Graves and Lois S. Graves Awards “encourage and reward outstanding accomplishment in actual teaching in the humanities by younger faculty members.” This competitive award, offered biennially, recognizes excellence in teaching; the funding that accompanies it supports research-related expenses. Dr. Sebok’s proposed research project, “The Documentary (Sur)Real: The Loss of Authority” will explore the proliferation of documentary style across media representations in fiction and reality television, and the results of this expansion. More specifically, he will explore the “Essay Film” and the “Performative Documentary” of the 1970s, followed by the growth of the mockumentary form on television.  

Dr. Sebok’s creative work regularly involves students. For example, in 2013 he collaborated with students on a short narrative film called A Gun and a Girl that played at the Cannes Film Festival. More recently, more than a dozen undergraduates collaborated on FOOD TRUCK: THE MOVIE, which won “Best Documentary Feature” at the 2016 Madrid International Film Festival. More about Dr. Sebok’s teaching and scholarship is available here.

Dr. Sebok joins a distinguished group of other Lewis & Clark Graves’ awardees, including Kristin Fujie (2014), Rachel Cole (2012), Joel Martinez (2010), Karen Gross (2008), David Campion (2006), Rebecca Copenhaver (2004), and Aaron Beck (2000).

February 2018