LEadership
Portrait of Sarah Lewis. Image by Stephanie Mitchell.
Sarah Lewis is an art and cultural historian.
Founder
Lewis founded Vision & Justice, a catalytic civic initiative that generates original research and programs that reveal the foundational role of art and culture for equity and justice in America. The initiative now includes the Harvard course, the landmark Vision & Justice Convening, and the Vision & Justice Book Series, launched in partnership with Aperture.
Author
Lewis’s books and edited volumes include The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America, bestseller The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery, translated into seven languages, Carrie Mae Weems, and the “Vision & Justice” special issue of Aperture magazine. Her forthcoming book, Vision & Justice, will be published with One World/Random House. She has had op-eds, commentary, and profiles of her work published in outlets including The New York Times, Aperture, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Boston Globe.
Professor
She is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She pioneered the course Vision and Justice: The Art of Race and American Citizenship, now part of the university’s core curriculum, alongside teaching other courses on the intersection of art, visual culture, and democracy.
Lewis focuses on a central question: what is the role of art for justice in American society?
Her scholarship has received awards and recognition including an honorary degree from Pratt Institute, the Infinity Award, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, a Cullman Fellowship, the Freedom Scholar Award (ASALH), the Arthur Danto/ASA Prize from the American Philosophical Association, and the Photography Network Book Prize. She has received grants ranging from the Ford Foundation to the Whiting Foundation, and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
Public Speaker
An in-demand public speaker, her mainstage TED talk received more than 3 million views, and she has given keynote addresses from the World Business Forum to the Urban League of Hampton Roads, among many other universities, organizations, and conferences around the country.
Board Advisor
Lewis currently serves on the boards of Thames & Hudson Inc., Creative Time, and Civil War History journal. Her past board service includes Harvard Design Press, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Brearley School, The CUNY Graduate Center, and the Yale University Honorary Degrees Committee.