Richard Keller Simon

Richard Keller Simon Richard Keller Simon, a teacher, scholar and author who was Professor of English and Chair of Humanities at California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, Calif., died April 4, 2005, at his home in San Luis Obispo. He was 60. The cause of death was mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. A native of Philadelphia, Pa., Simon graduated from Philadelphia's Central High School, where he was editor-in-chief of the school's newspaper, the Centralizer, and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Michigan, where he received two major Hopwood Awards - one each in writing essays and drama. After teaching first at Northern Michigan University and then at Western Michigan University, he pursued further graduate study at Stanford University, where he earned a Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature in 1977. He taught at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Texas before joining the English Department at California State Polytechnic University in 1988. Dick's principal interst as a scholar and teacher was modern popular culture. He wrote Trash Culture (University of California Press, 1999), a study of the ways in which great books and popular entertainments are surprisingly similar (though not identical) to each other, and the argument that we must study the popular entertainments with the same care and precision with which we study the great books. An earlier book The Labyrinth of the Comic : Theory and Practice from Fielding to Freud (University Press of Florida, 1985) is a study of concepts of comedy, the comic, laughter, and humor in literature, philosophy, psychology and psychoanalysis. He also gave many lectures at other universities and published numerous scholarly articles exploring various aspects of popular culture and modern thought. Early in Dick's career he realized that the stories we tell - whether as literature, song or in other media, including the stage, television and movies - strongly influence the behavior and choices of individuals and societies. One of his principal objectives was to increase his students' understanding of how they were influenced by media. His courses were regarded by his students as demanding and rewarding. In 1966 he received Cal Poly's Distinguished Teaching Award. As Chair of Humantieis he worked for many years for the establishment of faculty cash awards in the college of Liberal Arts. These efftors came to frution with the establishment of three prizes to be awarded annually. Two weeks before his death, the College Council decided to name those awards for him, the first time any faculty has been so honored. He is survived by his wife, Kathleen Waddell, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice in San Luis Obispo, Calif.; and their son, Noah Simon-Waddell, a film student at the University of Texas; his mother, Rhoda Simon; and a sister, Jeanne Simon, both of Walnut Creek, Calif.; two brothers, William Simon, of Chevy Chase Md., and Paul Simon, of Berkeley, Calif.; and three nephews, Max Simon, of Berkeley, Calif., and Jonathan Simon and Benjamin Simon, both of Chevy Chase, Md. There will be a celebration of Dick's life on Saturday, October 15, 2005, at 1412 West Ninth St., Austin. Please RSVP 474-1803.