Dwight K. Lewis, PhD

Dr. Lewis is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and the Stephen R. Setterberg, M.D., Faculty Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Minnesota TC. Dr. Lewis received his PhD from the University of South Florida (Tampa, FL), working under Roger Ariew and Justin EH Smith in the History of Philosophy. His research focuses on concepts of human difference (e.g., race, gender, and sexuality), underrepresented philosophers, early modern philosophy generally construed, Africana Philosophy, and philosophy of race. He defended his dissertation, “Amo’s Philosophy and Reception: From the Origins through the Encyclopédie,” in 2019. During the final year of his dissertation project, he spent the academic year (2018-19) as a Mellon Research Fellow at Emory University in The James Weldon Johnson Institute. Following that year, he was a Mellon Postdoc Fellow at Penn State University in the Philosophy Department.

Dr. Lewis has given over 70 invited talks, in contexts such as Columbia University, Carleton College, Dartmouth, Harvard, University of Toronto, APA, San Francisco State University, Michigan State, University of London, University of Western Ontario, Penn, and University of Ghana. He has also presented peer-reviewed conference papers internationally, including Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment at University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and on Anton Wilhelm Amo at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He helps lead the Center for Canon Expansion and Change and has two academic book projects under contract.

Dr. Lewis is active in producing cultural media on salient topics. He hosts a podcast with Matt LaVine on the topic of “Larger, Freer, More Loving”: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr8kPHS2eocmqvdLmMsh1ZA. He was interviewed on Smithsonian’s “1000 Years of Slavery” (Episode 2) produced by Angela Bassett and Courtney Vance: https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/one-thousand-years-of-slavery. Additionally, Amazon’s Audible interviewed Dr. Lewis on “In Search of Black History” (Episode 5) with Bonnie Greer: https://www.audible.com/pd/Ep-5-The-Darkness-of-the-Enlightenment-Podcast/B08DC9B7HP?ref=a_pd_In-Sea_c0_lAsin_0_4&pf_rd_p=1da7ab30-c785-4a0e-a160-4a7e7077b353&pf_rd_r=R6CFNSC00EK2PGJYCSYN. Dr. Lewis’s interview on Martin Luther King Jr appeared with “News 13: Spectrum News”: https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2021/01/19/dr–martin-luther-king-jr–s-legacy?cid=share_clip&wdLOR=cB2D1B7BE-8B3D-7D4F-9ED9-7A33AD3C512E. His research was also featured via interview with Eidolon on “The First African to Have Attended a European University” by Yung In Chae: https://eidolon.pub/the-first-african-to-have-attended-a-european-university-b4ef9b7f8c8a.