Faculty Spotlight: Between the Lines with Nick Roux

For twenty-one years, Nick Roux has been helping students at The Chicago Academy for the Arts do something powerful: learn to read the world.

Nick Roux, Co-Chair of the Humanities Department

As Co-Chair of the Humanities Department, Nick brings both depth and curiosity to the classroom. A graduate of Kenyon College, where he majored in Literature with concentrations in Creative Writing and Interdisciplinary Studies, he has built his courses around a simple but transformative idea: texts are everywhere.

Reading Beyond The Page

“As a literature teacher, my classes are text-based,” Nick explains. “This could be a novel, a play, a critical essay, or a film. My goal is to give students the confidence to read the world as they would a text: analyzing its patterns, assumptions, and possibilities with independence.”

In Nick’s classroom, students don’t just summarize plots. They dissect structure. They question assumptions. They identify patterns and meaning in everything from Hemingway to contemporary cinema. A well-crafted film becomes as worthy of close reading as a classic novel. A single joke can open the door to logic, metaphor, and philosophy. That independence — the ability to look at the world critically and creatively — is at the heart of his work.

Where Design Meets Literature

Outside of teaching, Nick finds inspiration in design and architecture. He’s drawn to objects and spaces that feel inevitable — so thoughtful and purposeful that they seem as though they could take no other form.

That sensibility shows up in his teaching. Close analysis, he believes, helps students recognize the “architecture” of a text — the careful choices, the structural integrity, the satisfying resolution. Whether it’s a perfectly constructed paragraph or a masterfully edited film, the joy is in discovering how it all fits together.

Speaking of film: this year has been a particularly exciting one. Nick has loved discussing standout works like One Battle After Another, Sinners, Bugonia, and Marty Supreme with students and colleagues — proof that great storytelling is alive and evolving.

The Serious Business of Jokes

If you think Humanities is all solemn analysis, think again. Recently, Nick presented at the LMAIS “Passion, Purpose, Play: Get Ready to Build Some Joyful Connections” conference with a session titled I’m (Not) Just Joking: Using Jokes in Teaching, Thinking, and Life. The premise? Jokes are far more sophisticated than we give them credit for.

In his Literature and Comedic Form elective and Philosophy classes, Nick explores how jokes rely on metaphor, imagery, logic, syllogism, and structure — not to mention their ability to tap into the subconscious. When students break apart a joke, they uncover layers of cognitive work happening in an instant.

Even more importantly, he connects joke-thinking to “play” in the classroom. Humor becomes a tool for connection, for creativity, and for tackling serious ideas from a fresh angle. It’s not about being funny for the sake of it — it’s about sharpening thought.

A Little More About Nick: Rapid-Fire Favorites

• Coffee or tea? Black coffee

• Season? Autumn

• Books or podcasts? Podcasts during the school year, much more reading in the summer

• Fun fact: He once won a college euchre tournament — earning a free trip to a national competition at Disney World. (He and his partner lost in the first round, but the story remains legendary.)

Twenty-One Years — And Counting

After more than two decades at The Academy, Nick Roux continues to model what it means to be intellectually curious, analytically rigorous, and joyfully playful. In his classroom, texts aren’t static artifacts — they’re living conversations. And students leave not only better readers, but sharper thinkers.

Because when you can read a novel, a film, a joke — or the world itself — with confidence and independence, you’re ready for anything.

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