Professor
A.B., City College of New York
M.A., University of Manitoba
Ph.D., University of New Hampshire
Carney Hall 468
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
Phone: 617-552-3710
Fax: 617-552-4220
lewisp@bc.edu
Academic Profile
Academic specializations: American Humor Since 1980; American Literature: 1790-1860; Gothic Fiction.
Courses
EN010.19 - First Year Writing Seminar
EN141.01 - American Literary History I
EN412.12 - Writing Workshop: Creative Nonfiction
EN478.01 - Poe and the Gothic
Publications (Selected)
- Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict,The University of Chicago Press, 2006.
- Comic Effects: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Humor in Literature, State University of New York Press, 1989.
- Editor, “The Muhammad Cartoons and Humor Research” in HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 21-1(2008): 1-46.
- "Painful Laughter: The Collapse of Humor in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories," reprinted in Charles L. P. Silet, ed., The Films of Woody Allen: Critical Essays, Scarecrow Press, 2006.
- "Charles Brockden Brown and Woman Warriors of the 1790's," in Early American Literature 40: 1(2005): 37-55.
- "A 'Wild' and 'Homely' Narrative: Resisting Argument in 'The Black Cat'" Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism," 35 (2002):1-14; and in POEtic Effect and Cultural Discourses, Ed. Hermann Josef Schnackertz (Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag, 2003), 61-84.
- "'Lectures or a Little Charity': Poor Visits in Antebellum Literature and Culture," New England Quarterly (June 2000): 246-73.
- Great Poe Debate, Free Library of Philadelphia, January 13, 2009 [Podcast]
- "Evermore: The Enduring Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe," Boston Globe, January 11, 2009.
- All things Considered story on Boston's celebration of the Poe bicentennial
- "(Mis)reading Borat: The Risks of Irony in the Digital Age, Electronic Journal of Communication 18:2, 3, &4 (2008).
- "Take this President ... Somebody Please," Tikkun, November-December, 2007, 60-62; with a response essay by Michael Nagler: 63-64.
- "Stephen Colbert, Character and Candidate" (op-ed), Providence Journal, October 31, 2007
- "Missing the Punch Line," a review of "The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks" by James Robert Parish (John Wiley & Sons, 2007), in Haaretz, September 7, 2007, 12-13.
- "Beyond Empathy: Sarah Silverman and the Limits of Comedy," Tikkun, September-October, 2007, 88-89.
- "And divided we laugh: the year in humor," Boston Globe, December 29, 2006.
- "Meanwhile: Laughing all the way to the war," International Herald Tribune, December 8, 2006.
- "Funny Thing About Elections," Philadelphia Inquirer, September 8, 2006.
- "Hamlet: A Mature Reading," Washington Post, February 26, 1997.
- "The Sweet Cycle: From Blossom to Berry to Jam," New York Times, September 23, 1992.
- POE BICENTENNIAL PROJECT
Additional Professional Information
Lewis is a member of the editorial board of humor: International Journal of Humor Research, a freelance writer, the organizer of the Poe Bicentennial Program in Boston, and the neologist who coined the word Frakenfood.
