Kevin Lewis
Professor, Director of Graduate Studies;
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1980
Religion and Culture
tel: 803-777-2561 • email: kevin@sc.edu
Trained in the sub-field, Religion. Literature, and the Arts, Lewis conducts an evolving program of undergraduate and graduate teaching, cross-disciplinary scholarship, and individualized guidance of MA students. (His U. of Chicago dissertation addresses the Protestant character and formal strategy of longer poems of William Blake and W.H. Auden.)
His interests are not limited to primary specialization in religious dimensions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literatures in English or translation, especially poetry. Lewis maintains a teaching and writing interest in religion in the South from a cultural perspective, in apocalypse, and in Blake. His recently published,
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| At Mount Nebo, 2006 |
"American Lonesomeness,” probes the religious-like moment in images of loneliness transcended across the American arts: poetry, fiction, country music, and the “luminist” painting of Edward Hopper. This is a current expression of his larger project: development of writing strategies for presenting research results in Religion and Literature. Lewis was interviewd by Jack Kuenzie with WISTV in December 2010 on American lonesomeness (see the video).
His Selected Publications indicate others. The 1999 essay, “Nathanael West and American Apocalyptic” offers, in miniature, an example of an approach he employs. Another, from 1997, is: “On the Heresy of Literalism”. His poem , “Lovesick Blues”, won honorable mention in the University of Chicago Alumni Poetry Contest, Spring 2003. Another, "Easter Noon", won first place in the Lake Murray Magazine annual writing contest, September, 2005.
Lewis is a member of the consulting faculty Comparative Literature, of the associate faculty of Women's Studies, and has served on 27 committees for PhDs completed in English. He served on the board of H-Arete, the discussion list supported by the Sport Literature Association. In January 2001 he began a Governor's appointment to the South Carolina Holocaust Council. Each of his six students in RELG 572: Religious Classics (Fall 1999) contributed an essay on one of the seven deadly sins — have a look. He enjoyed a third Visiting Fellowship in Wolfson College in 2012.
 | | Dr. Walid Amer, (Chair, IUG English Dept.), Kevin, and Becky, Gaza, Fall 1998. |
Since his USC appointment in 1973, Lewis has taken four separate years away: as Visiting Fellow in Trevelyan College, U. of Durham, England (1985-86); Fulbright Senior Lecturer in American Literature at the Jagiellonian University, in Krakow (1988-89); Fulbright Senior Lecturer in American Literature at the Islamic U. of Gaza (Fall 1998), Research Fellow in Wolfson College, Cambridge (Spring 1999), and a research sabbatical in Amman, Jordan (Fall 2005), followed by a second fellowship in Wolfson College, Cambridge (Spring 2006).
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| Twelfth Night - January 6, 2005 |
He and his wife, Becky, served as start-up Principals of USC's first residential college, Preston (1995-98). They taught together, each a full load, at the IUG (Fall 1998), and were appointed jointly to the governing board of the Nineteenth Century Studies Association (NCSA) in 2003. Becky, PhD., English, USC, holds an appointment in English and Women's Studies with USC's Academic Credit Programs/ Continuing Education, and was Fulbright Senior Lecturer at the University of Jordan in Amman (Fall 2005).
Current selective Vita.
Complete
Vita.pdf
In fairly regular rotation he teaches courses in:
Religion and Culture
Spiritual Autobiography
Visions of the Apocalypse
Religion and Existentialism
Literature and Film of the Holocaust
Religious Classics
Religion in the South
Queries, comments, greetings, critical discussion welcome by email:
kevin@sc.edu
Recent news and projects at:
Current Faculty News and Annual Newsletter
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