Christian Jeremiah Lewis
Christian Lewis (they/them/theirs) is an Adjunct Assistant Professor. They graduated from Vassar in 2017 and since then have taught at Vassar in both the English and Womens, Queer, and Feminist Studies departments. They received their PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2022. They research disability, gender, and sexuality.
After graduating from Vassar in 2017 I received my PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center. Since then I have taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Baruch College, and here at Vassar. My work primarily concerns the intersections of disability, gender, and sexuality, particularly in Victorian literature. I am currently in the process of publishing my prize-winning dissertation into a book, to be titled Narrative Side-Stepping: Disability Beyond the Narratology of Normalcy. In it, I propose a new way of reading that offers more expansive options for disabled characters in literature. My other projects include illness in Jane Austen, Trollope and the marriage plot, contemporary theater and performance, new theories of embodiment and dysmorphia/dysphoria, drag and dramaturgy, queer-crip narratology, polyamory in literature, and accessible pedagogy. Alongside my academic work, I am also a freelance theater critic, and have written for Variety, Playbill, Theatermania, Theatrely, Queerty, Into, Out, and American Theatre Magazine. I'm a queer, trans nonbinary, disabled scholar and use they/them/theirs pronouns.
Research and Academic Interests
Victorian Literature; British Literature; Global Literature; Disability Studies; Queer Theory; Gender Studies; Theater and Performance Studies; Dramaturgy; Medical Humanities; The Marriage Plot; Pop Culture; Drag
Departments and Programs
Courses
English 101 (Melodrama)
English 218 (Disability, Gender, and Sexuality in Literature)
WQFS 201 (Intro to Queer Studies)
Selected Publications
- “Limping Lucy’s Queer Criptopia: Narrative Side-Stepping in The Moonstone.” Victorian Literature and Culture 50.3 (2022): 461-487.
- “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical.” Theatre Journal 73.3 (2021): 432-433.
- “'A Malady of Interpretation': Performances of Hypochondria in Jane Austen.” Nineteenth Century Studies 32 (2020): 22-37.
- “Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris.” Theatre Journal 72.2 (2020): 252-253.
- “Dickens Matters?” with Caroline Reitz, Emily Foster, Beth Sherman, Stephanie Montalti, and Sean Nortz. Dickens Studies Annual 50.2 (2019): 363-388.
- “Esther-All-Alones, or On Reading Half of Bleak House: An Experiment in Esther Studies,” with Emily Anne Foster. Los Angeles Review of Books, 31 August 2019.