Professor Lewis has been teaching African and Third World Literature at the College of Charleston since 1996, and has been director of the African Studies program since spring 2012 [I think that's right!] As editor of the literary journal Illuminations: An International Magazine of Contemporary Writing from 1996-2011 he produced a number of special issues devoted to South and East African poetry. Lewis is an associate director of the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW) program.

His new book, British and African Literature in Transnational Context, came out from the University Press of Florida in May, 2011. In 2013 he convened the 39th annual conference of the African Literature Association with the theme "Literature, Liberation, and the Law." The conference coincided with the publication of a special issue of the Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies, co-edited with Lindsey Green-Simms, devoted to 21st-century African literature.