Biography
George lewis' Biography
I was born and raised in the State of Maine (yes, we call ourselves Mainiacs) and earned my BA degree in Sociology, Summa Cum Laude, at Bowdoin College, a "little ivy league" school on the Maine coast in 1965. From there I wound up hitch hiking to Oregon (long story), doing my MA and PhD work at the University of Oregon, finishing my degree in 1970. The rapid social and cultural changes that I was exposed to in these nationally unsettling years and personal settings really fixed my intellectual agenda on the impact of shifting cultural forms and their meaning on people's ideas, identities and actions. I joined the Pacific faculty as a young assistant professor in the fall of 1970.
I have continued to be fascinated by culture and meaning in my academic career and my research, teaching in places as far removed from each other as Lund, Sweden; Sarajevo, Bosnia and Honolulu, Hawaii. I have also made friends at research sites in Accra, Ghana; Tokyo, Japan; Alicante, Spain and Nashville, Tennessee. In all of these situations, and more, I feel I have come away learning at least as much new about culture as I have shared. For these opportunities, afforded me by being a teacher/researcher at Pacific, I will always be grateful.