Paul Lewis
Professor Emeritus
Biography
Paul Lewis is an Americanist, a past president of the Poe Studies Association, the curator of exhibitions on literary Boston, and the neologist who coined the word “Frankenfood.” The author of Quothing "The Raven" The First Responses to America's Most Famous Poem, Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict, Comic Effects: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Humor in Literature, and A Is for Asteroids, Z Is for Zombies: A Bedtime Book about the Coming Apocalypse , Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict, Comic Effects: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Humor in Literature , and A Is for Asteroids, Z Is for Zombies: A Bedtime Book about the Coming Apocalypse , Lewis led the Boston Poems Project and edited The Citizen Poets of Boston: A Collection of Forgotten Poems, 1789-1820, for the University Press of New England . As the BOD chair of the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston, Inc., Lewis worked with others to celebrate Poe in the city of his birth by having a square at the intersection of Boylston Street and Charles Street South dedicated to Poe in 2010 and then installing a statue of Poe in it in 2014. In addition to articles and book chapters on American literature, controversial humor, and literary Boston, Lewis has published opinion, humor, and feature pieces in such places as the New York Times, I nternational Herald Tribune , Washington Post , Chicago Tribune , Los Angeles Times , New York Newsday , Atlanta Constitution , Boston Globe , Philadelphia Inquirer , Old House , National Post (Canada), Tikkun , and Haaretz (Israel).