Dylan Lewis

Dylan Lewis (he/him) is an ABD doctoral candidate in English Literature at the University of Maryland. In 2025 Dylan joined Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library as Rare Book Librarian. At Emory he stewards the Rose Library’s printed materials and supports teaching and research in book history, bibliography, and the history of print. Before coming to Emory, he worked as a librarian at the Stadt- und Landesbibliothek in Dortmund, Germany, and as a letterpress printer and instructor at the University of Maryland’s BookLab, the English Department’s book arts library and makerspace. He is also an Andrew W. Mellon Junior Fellow in Critical Bibliography and the Managing Editor for the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (PBSA).

Dylan's interdisciplinary research centers on the technology and culture of printing, the history of typography, and Anglo-German book history and bibliography in the hand press period (~1450-1800). Broadly speaking, his research explores how typographic forms, printing practices, and cross-lingual networks shape political and intellectual exchange. He is also especially interested in the cultural afterlives of Johannes Gutenberg and the Western narrative of the “invention” of printing, tracing how that narrative has been mobilized, contested, and commemorated across national and political contexts. In addition, he is developing projects in the subfield of queer bibliography and serves on the planning committee for the annual Queer Bibliography symposium.

He has presented his work at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the Senate House Library in London, the Center for Book Arts in New York City, as well as at annual meetings of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the German Studies Association, the American Printing History Association, the Bibliographical Society of America, and other national and regional scholarly organizations. His professional training in bibliography and rare books includes coursework with Rare Book School, California Rare Book School, California Rare Book School International, the Folger Shakespeare Library, University of Pennsylvania’s Dream Lab, and the American Library Association.

Alongside his academic and professional work, Dylan maintains a range of academic-adjacent pursuits that continue to inform his thinking about books, media, typography, and material culture. He is an active letterpress printer, clarinet performer, book collector, and video game enthusiast. His digital self can be found on Bluesky at @iamdylanlewis.bsky.social.