Kimberly Lewis began her studies of English literature alongside an International Relations concentration at Cornell University. She found a compromise in Comparative Literature, receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2007 with a focus on the relationship between World War II and the novel. In her dissertation, Post-war Engagement, she focused mainly on theories of the socio-political responsibility of the author in the postwar era, and the effect of these theoretical discussions on the works of French and Italian novelists such as Italo Calvino, Albert Camus, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Maurice Blanchot. Now revising that work for publication as a book, her current interests span a broad range of concerns related to the interaction of politics, history, and the novel in Europe and in Africa.
Before coming to Stanford, Kimberly taught literature, French, and writing at New York University and at Fordham University. What she most enjoys in life besides being a scholar and a teacher, however, is writing fiction, obsessively reading the news, and traveling to far away places.