John Lewis

Research Interests

My research interests include the Great War and African American military history. World War I is still one of America's least understood wars. I want to teach new history students about the war which created our modern world and shaped America's place within it. I also study historical video games, the military and social history of video games, and gaming as applicable to teaching history. I want to bring gaming of all kinds into the classroom as a pedagogical tool. I want to merge traditional visual and auditory lecture and note-taking teaching methods with tactile, play, and learning by lecturing methods, so students with different learning style preferences can benefit equally from in-class material with their peers. Dr. Foote and I put some of these methods into practice with our in-class Battle of Eastern Solomons staff ride in TAMU's History of Sea Power class in Spring of 2025, and I am currently developing a similar in-class staff ride for the Battle of Lake Okeechobee which I will implement in TAMU's Fall 2025 U.S. Military History from 1609 to the Present class.

I came to Texas A&M in 2019 from Tulsa, Oklahoma to study the U.S. Army during the First World War. In 2022, I took a job with the U.S. Army Center of Military History and lived in Washington from August of 2022 to August of 2024 while working there. I am back to finish my PhD. My dissertation is about the Pioneer Infantry, soldiers who built roads for the American Expeditionary Force in France.

Chair: Dr. Lorien Foote

Areas of Speciality

• Military History