Erik Braeden Lewis, PhD

Grading my end of semester reflection assignment (my favorite of the year). It asks: what is the most important thing you learned in this class and how did it impact your educational trajectory?

Y'all...the candor they have.

That end of the semester grading fury that I do to myself every semester...

I never learn.

#tenuretrack

I also play in my mom's jewelry box every time I go home!! It's fun, and it's so much stuff that means so much to her, that she smiles just getting it out for us to play in. I love this for you so much!

So confused. Why do we keep outsourcing our humanity to AI? We're just giving up all the fun parts of life, including our jobs...and for what?

Paper accepted. I'll be in Philadelphia in March. See y'all there!

#SFHS
#tenuretrack

QR code for Pokémon Go

Need a new friend on Pokemon Go?

I just submitted a proposal to be an AI Faculty Fellow for the Spring 2026 semester. Stepping way out of my comfort zone.

#tenuretrack

This sounds amazing!

I'm on the Budget Committee this year at my college. Just finished the meeting of budget requests...tough decisions ahead. Also, I probably have more questions now than answers about how college budgets work. Interesting stuff, y'all.

#tenuretrack

I do think students should learn to use AI to help them succeed in our hellish society. Just not in my humanities classroom, in which we learn about art humans created and in which we seek to improve and sharpen intellectual faculties unique to humans.

Nerd life is L I F E

And, graduate school at Florida State University in the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution was the coolest thing. There were so many other people studying the French Revolution with me in so many unique and interesting ways. Such a wonderful experience.

Frankly, the biggest drawback to teaching at a community college (all lower-level survey courses) is that I don't get to spend enough time talking about the French Revolution.

#tenuretrack
#frenchrevolution

Anybody else have more and more students just...refuse to turn in any work, despite announcements and emails and interventions with case managers and the whole nine yards?

#tenuretrack

This is terrible. Some of the best and brightest professors, and especially one who co-chaired my research for my PhD (while at a Florida public university), are "foreign employees." I wouldn't be where I am today without their instruction and guidance.

I'm just caught up enough on work that I'm starting to worry that I have missed something.

#tenuretrack

Catching up on grading today.

#tenuretrack

Canvas is fixed, but I broke the office printer somehow...

#tenuretrack

So, the theft at the Louvre reminds me so much about the theft of Madame du Barry's jewelry, about which I wrote my MA thesis. I am devastated as an historian, but fascinated even still.

LOL @ Canvas

In what is a terrible loss for history, what was left of the French Crown Jewels were stolen from the Louvre today.

Work got me a new desktop and two new monitors for my office. This is a game changer. The old computer barely worked.

#tenuretrack

I (we all) have been recording lectures since COVID started a few moons back, but I still get anxiety about recording my lectures before each one, and I don't know if this is just normal butterflies or some other unknown fear (hearing my own voice maybe?)?

#tenuretrack

Just taking a moment to acknowledge the administrative staff in my Division at my college. They continually work their asses off, with a smile the whole time. AND, today they made me fresh coffee because I told them I was struggling. Sometimes it takes a village, y'all.

I submitted my proposal for the SFHS conference in Philadelphia. If accepted, my paper will use sources from the Catalan National Archives and French Diplomatic Archives to investigate Spanish notions of asylum during the French Revolution, particularly concerning the émigrés.

#tenuretrack

Who gets yellow gold these days, anyway?

First day back in the classroom. I love what I do.

#tenuretrack

Contract date is tomorrow. I'm probably already behind. But, I'm terribly excited for another semester doing what I love. It's still wild to me that people pay money to hear me talk about things that fascinate me.

#tenuretrack

Get some rest, my friend. The semester will be fine.

The tedium of updating Canvas each semester will be a slow, painful death for me.

#tenuretrack