Pericles Lewis Explained

Pericles Lewis
Office1:	Dean of Yale College
Term Start1:	July 1, 2022
Predecessor1:	Marvin Chun
Office2:	1st President of Yale-NUS College
Term Start2:	July 1, 2012
Term End2:	July 1, 2017
Predecessor2:	Position established
Successor2:	Tan Tai Yong
Birth Date:	13 September 1968
Birth Place:	Canada
Education:	McGill University (BA) Stanford University (MA, PhD)

Pericles Lewis is the Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of comparative literature at Yale University^[1] and the Dean of Yale College.^{[2] [3]}

Previously at Yale, he was the founding president of Yale-NUS College, a liberal arts college in Singapore that is jointly governed by Yale and the National University of Singapore,^{[4] [5]} as well as vice president for global strategy and vice provost for academic initiatives.^{[6] [7]}

Biography

Lewis was born in Canada on September 13, 1968.^[8] He is the grandson of Canadian Member of Parliament Andrew Brewin. He attended high school at the University of Toronto Schools and received his bachelor's degree in English literature from McGill University in 1990. He received the degree of A.M. in comparative literature in 1991 and his Ph.D, also in comparative literature, in 1997 from Stanford University, where his dissertation supervisor was Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht.^[9] He travelled extensively in Asia as a young man.^[10]

He is married to Sheila N. Hayre, clinical professor of law at Quinnipiac University.

Academic career

Lewis was appointed assistant professor at Yale in the departments of English and comparative literature in 1998, promoted to associate professor there in 2002, and full professor in 2007.^[11] He was director of undergraduate studies for the Yale literature major from 2000 to 2006, and director of graduate studies of Yale's Comparative Literature Department from 2006 to 2010. He was the recipient of the McGill Graduates' Society Award for Student Service (1990), a Whiting Fellowship (1997), the Heyman Prize (2000), a Morse Fellowship (2001), and the Yale Graduate Mentor Award (2004).As a scholar, he is best known for his books Modernism, Nationalism, and the Novel, The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism and Religious Experience and the Modernist Novel. He is also an editor of the third, fourth, and fifth editions of the widely used Norton Anthology of World Literature (2012; 2018; 2024) ^[12]

He was the project director of the Yale Modernism Lab, a website for "collaborative research into the roots of literary modernism".^{[13] [14]} He also serves on the editorial board of Modernism/Modernity.

As Yale's vice president for global strategy from 2017 to 2022, he was involved in planning the launches of the Yale Jackson School for Global Affairs, the Yale Institute for Global Health and the Yale Schwarzman Center.^[15]

He became the dean of Yale College on July 1, 2022.^[16] As Dean, he revised Yale's policies on student leaves of absence for mental health,^[17] recruited a number of heads and deans for Yale's residential colleges,^[18] and opened an Office of Educational Opportunity.^[19] He argued in favor of affirmative action and took steps to maintain diversity at Yale after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action.^[20] In his first-year address in 2022, he spoke about Conversation.^[21] His second first-year address, in 2023, focused on Community.^{[22] [23]} He launched the dean’s dialogue series to encourage civil discourse on difficult topics, including national politics and the conflict in the Middle East. ^[24] During the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, Lewis briefly received backlash for alleging that protestors at Yale were "non-Yale [individuals] with a known history of violent confrontation with police" which protest organizers called "racist and classist against New Haveners."^[25] Lewis later recanted his statement.

Yale-NUS

He was appointed President of Yale-NUS, a liberal arts college affiliated with both Yale and the National University of Singapore, by a joint search committee; the appointment was announced on May 30, 2012, effective July 1, 2012.^[26] Before appointment, Lewis was a key planner of the new college's curriculum, and supervised the hiring of core faculty. The College's first students matriculated on July 2, 2013, and graduated on May 29, 2017.^[27] As President, Lewis advocated the concept of residential liberal arts education as "building a community of learning."^[28]

Publications

Books

• The Cambridge Companion to European Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
• Religious Experience and the Modernist Novel. New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN
• The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. .
• Modernism, Nationalism, and the Novel. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  • Review by Alan Munton; The Modern Language Review, Apr., 2003, vol. 98, no. 2, p. 443-444

Articles

• "The Rise and Restructuring of Yale-NUS College: An International Liberal Arts Partnership in Singapore." Daedalus (2024).
• “Proust, Woolf, and modern fiction.” Romanic Review 99 (2008): 77–86.
• “The Reality of the unseen: Shared fictions and religious experience in the ghost stories of Henry James.” Arizona Quarterly 61.2 (Summer 2005): 33–66.
• “Christopher Newman’s haircloth shirt: worldly asceticism, conversion, and auto-machia in The American.” Studies in the Novel 37 (2005): 308–28.
• “Churchgoing in the Modern Novel.” Modernism/Modernity 11 (2004): 667–94.
• “James’s Sick Souls.” Henry James Review 22 (2001): 248–58.
• “‘His Sympathies were in the Right Place’: Heart of Darkness and the discourse of national character.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 53 (1998): 211-44. (Reprinted in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: Modern Critical Interpretations, 2008).
• “The ‘True’ Homer: myth and enlightenment in Vico, Horkheimer, and Adorno." New Vico Studies 10 (1992): 24–35.

Books edited

Norton Anthology of World Literature New York: Norton, 2012. Ed. Martin Puchner et al.

External links

• Lewis's Webspace at Yale

Notes and References

1. https://news.yale.edu/2019/03/07/pericles-lewis-appointed-smith-professor-comparative-literature Pericles Lewis appointed the Smith Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale News, March 7, 2019
2. News: Hodgman . Lucy . Pericles Lewis named Dean of Yale College . 26 May 2022 . Yale Daily News . 25 May 2022.
3. News: Pericles Lewis named dean of Yale College . 26 May 2022 . YaleNews . 25 May 2022.
4. Karin Fischer, "Yale Scholar Will Be First President of New Institution in Singapore" The Chronicle of Higher EducationMay 30, 2012 http://chronicle.com/article/Yale-Scholar-Will-Be-First/132036/?sid=at
5. "'Not the job' of Yale-NUS College to tell students what to think" AsiaOne May 30, 2012 http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20120531-349466.html
6. http://news.yale.edu/2016/07/15/pericles-lewis-appointed-vp-global-strategy-and-deputy-provost-international-affairs Pericles Lewis appointed VP for global strategy and deputy provost for international affairs, Yale News, July 16, 2016
7. Web site: Crair named vice provost for research; Lewis to oversee Poorvu Center. 18 February 2020.
8. http://errol.oclc.org/laf/n99-33898.html LC Authority File
9. http://campuspress.yale.edu/pericleslewis/ Lewis web page at Yale
10. Web site: Ng. Jing Yng. A People President. 2012-09-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20120814151512/http://www.todayonline.com/People/TheStRegisPerspectives/EDC120727-0000174/A-people-president. 2012-08-14. dead.
11. Web site: Pericles Lewis.
12. http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=23645 Norton
13. Web site: About . The Modernism Lab . Yale University . 26 May 2022.
14. Web site: Modernism Lab – Collaborative Research on Literary Modernism.
15. Web site: 2022-05-25 . Announcement – Dean of Yale College . 2022-05-25 . Office of the President . en.
16. Web site: 2022-05-25 . Announcement – Dean of Yale College . 2022-05-25 . Office of the President . en.
17. Yale changes mental health policies for students in crisishttps://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/01/18/yale-mental-health-policies-change/
18. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/03/28/crystal-feimster-announced-as-head-of-pierson-college/ Crystal Feimster announced as head of Pierson College
19. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/academic-life/2023/08/28/unifying-college-student-services-expanded-visibility New Office at Yale Combines Success Resources, Promotes Access
20. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/09/08/university-announces-policy-changes-following-scotus-affirmative-action-ruling/ University announces policy changes following SCOTUS affirmative action ruling
21. https://yalecollege.yale.edu/get-know-yale-college/office-dean/messages-dean/first-year-address-pericles-lewis-august-22-2022 "On Conversation"
22. https://news.yale.edu/2023/08/21/opening-assembly-salovey-urges-class-2027-slow-down-fix-things In opening assembly, Salovey urges Class of 2027 to "slow down, fix things"
23. https://yalecollege.yale.edu/pericles-lewis-dean-yale-college Yale College webpage.
24. https://news.yale.edu/2023/12/07/space-dialogue-yale-series-models-civil-discussion-hard-topics
25. Web site: Roy . Yash . April 22, 2024 . Protesters Leave Street; No Further Arrests . live . June 30, 2024 . New Haven Independent.
26. "Yale’s Pericles Lewis to be inaugural Yale-NUS president" Yale News May 30, 2012 http://news.yale.edu/2012/05/30/yale-s-pericles-lewis-be-inaugural-yale-nus-president
27. News: Nearly two-thirds of Yale-NUS College's pioneer batch of students graduate with job or graduate school offers. The Straits Times. 29 May 2017. Yuen. Sin.
28. Web site: Lewis. Pericles. Building a Community of Learning at Yale-NUS.