2025 Sabbatical Award Recipient 

Michael Martin, associate professor of English, modern languages, and cultural studies at Nicholls State University, is the recipient of the 2025 Mary Todd Sabbatical Award of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.

Named for former Society Executive Director Mary Todd, the $50,000 award supports a sabbatical year or similar reassignment of duties for research or other scholarly projects.

Martin will use the funds from the award for Mythological Citizenship: Cherokee Orature, Cultural Memory, and Epistemology, a book-length study exploring Cherokee stories and their relation to cultural sovereignty and tribal memory. The project, currently under review with the Mercer University Press, examines how indigenous storytelling traditions illuminate Cherokee notions of citizenship, sovereignty, and epistemology.

A member and past president of the Phi Kappa Phi chapter at Nicholls State, Martin has long embodied the Society’s motto, “Let the love of learning rule humanity.” In addition to leading chapter initiatives, he has maintained chapter activity through virtual initiations during the pandemic and represented Nicholls State as a voting delegate at the Society’s 2022 biennial convention.

Martin’s previous work includes Appalachian Pastoral: Mountain Excursions, Aesthetic Visions, and the Antebellum Travel Narrative (Clemson University Press, 2022) and published research in Studies in American Indian Literatures. Through Mythological Citizenship, he aims to deepen public understanding of Native American culture and contribute to ongoing scholarship in Cherokee studies.