Stephen Lewis

Office: Trinity 219 

Phone: (530) 898-6244

Email: slewis2@csuchico.edu

Research

Professor Lewis's current research project is an investigation of Mexico’s National Indigenist Institute (INI) with the goal of illuminating the history of indigenismo (official Indian policy) in Chiapas and Mexico in general. He also is working with his co-editor on a collection of essays that is representative of recent historical research on Chiapas. 

In April 2011, Lewis was awarded the Edwin Lieuwen Award for Outstanding Teaching of Latin American Studies by the Rocky Mountain Council on Latin American Studies.

In January 2012, Lewis received Honorable Mention for the Tibesar prize, awarded by the Latin American branch of the American Historical Association for the best article published in The Americas. The article, entitled “Modernizing Message, Mystical Messenger: The Teatro Petul in the Chiapas Highlands, 1954-1974,” can be downloaded here: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_americas/v067/67.3.lewis.html

Publications

Professor Lewis is author of The Ambivalent Revolution: Forging State and Nation in Chiapas, Mexico, 1910-1945 (University of New Mexico Press, 2005). With Mary Kay Vaughan, he co-edited The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940 (Duke University Press, 2006). Most recently, he co-edited and wrote the introduction to Monopolio de aguardiente y alcoholismo en Chiapas: Un estudio ‘incómodo’ de Julio de la Fuente (CDI, 2009). His recent articles have appeared in Anuario de Estudios Americanos, The Americas, Ethnohistory, Mesoamérica, and Latin American Perspectives. Lewis has contributed chapters to several scholarly anthologies including, most recently, La ambivalente historia del indigenismo: Campo interamericano y trayectorias nacionales, 1940-1970 (eds. Laura Giraudo and Juan Martín-Sánchez, 2011). He has published recent book reviews in the American Historical Review, Hispanic American Historical Review, Historia mexicana, The Americas, Latin American Perspectives, and Pueblos y fronteras.