CHRISTOPHER LEWIS

Christopher T. Lewis received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Romance Languages & Literatures with an emphasis in Portuguese & Luso-Brazilian Literatures. He joined the faculty of the University of Utah in 2012. Prof. Lewis is Chair of the Department of World Languages & Cultures, directs the Portuguese & Brazilian Studies program, and spent many years on the Faculty Advisory Board for the Center for Latin American Studies. His research and teaching focus on 21st-century Brazilian Literature, Machado de Assis, and themes such as politics and science fiction in the music, literature, and cinema of the Portuguese-speaking world.

His most recent publications address the nature of creation via the Word in novels by Bernardo Carvalho (in Hispania); contrapuntal textual variants in reading Machado de Assis (in Machado de Assis em linha); the relativity of time in recent Brazilian films (in Journal of Lusophone Studies); and the convergence of prose and poetry in the work of Machado de Assis (in Hispania).

Prof. Lewis’s teaching has garnered accolades at the national, university, and college levels. In 2019, he received the University of Utah’s Early Career Teaching Award, which recognizes significant contributions to teaching at the university through new and innovative methods. In 2018, he was the winner of the Ramona W. Cannon Award, which has been awarded since 1976 to a professor who exemplifies outstanding contributions to the teaching of the humanities at the University of Utah. In 2016, the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP) distinguished Prof. Lewis with its Junior Faculty Teaching Award, a national award presented annually to one early career university professor from across all fields in Latin American Studies for outstanding pedagogy, mentoring success, community involvement, and incorporation of research into the classroom experience. He frequently teaches courses on Brazilian Literature, Brazilian identity in film, Brazilian popular music and politics, the Lusotropicalist myth, the fantastic and sci-fi in Brazilian Literature, and a comparative literature course on Mormon Literature.

Previously, he was on the faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he received the Commander’s Award for Civilian Service. He has also taught at Middlebury College and Harvard University, where he was awarded the Derek C. Bok Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Undergraduates. Students that Prof. Lewis has mentored have been recognized for their research with awards such as the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award, from the University of Utah’s College of Humanities, and the Hoopes Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Work, from Harvard University.

As a composer and arranger, he is a member of the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) and his work has been performed internationally.