Andrew Porter tells us of the death of Arthur O. Lewis, Jr., on 18 July 2009. Born 8 October 1920 in Wellsville, Pennsylvania, he was a scholar and professor.
Lewis was the author/editor of Of Men and Machines (1963), American Utopias: Selected Short Fiction (1971), and A Directory of Utopian Scholars (1976), which launched the national Society for Utopian Studies. He chaired the Society in 1979-80 and 1982-84; its Arthur O. Lewis Award is named in his honor. Lewis was also the president of the Science Fiction Research Association in 1977-78.
Lewis received his AB and AM in English from Harvard in 1940 and 1942, served in the US Army Signal Corps (1942-46), and then went to Pennsylvania State University in 1948. He joined Penn State’s faculty in 1950, and earned his PhD there in 1951. He was promoted to professor in 1960, and was associate heard of the Department of English from 1960 to 1965. He also held several deanships, and retired in 1985 as the associate dean emeritus of the College of the Liberal Arts and professor emeritus of English. In 2003 the Special Collections Library at the Penn State University Libraries named its collection of utopian literature in his honor.
Lewis married Celeste Cecile Juneau on 1 March 1945, and is survived by her, his sister, two brothers, three children five grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. A memorial service will be held on 10 October 2009. Memorial contributions made be made to Penn State in support of the Arthur O. Lewis and Celeste J. Lewis Utopia Collection Endowment, Office of Development, 510 Paterno Library, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802.
This obituary has more on his academic career.