Dr. Brian Lewis

Biography

Brian Lewis is a historian specializing in modern Britain, with an academic background that includes education at Oxford and Harvard. His substantial work, 'Middlemost Milltowns: Bourgeois Culture and Politics in Early Industrial England' (Stanford 2001), stems from his PhD thesis, which analyzes the contributions of middle-class members in Lancashire's cotton towns, focusing on Blackburn, Bolton, and Preston from 1789 to 1851. This work assesses their economic, cultural, and political roles in establishing social stability. Additionally, his book 'So Clean: Lord Leverhulme, Soap, and Civilization' (Manchester 2008) offers a broad social and cultural history, utilizing the life of William Hesketh Lever, the founder of the Lever Brothers' Sunlight soap empire, as a framework to discuss various topics including the second consumer revolution, corporate economy development, advertising, and colonialism. His monograph 'Wolfenden’s Witnesses: Homosexuality in Postwar Britain' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) presents an annotated selection of papers from the Wolfenden Committee. Currently, he is working on an SSHRC-funded project titled 'Greek Soul: George Ives and Homosexuality in Britain from Wilde to Wolfenden,' which explores homosexuality and criminality in Britain during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries, with Ives as a focal point. He has also contributed as a guest editor for a special queer edition of the Journal of British Studies and edited a collection of essays on British queer history.

Research Interests

Courses