Michael Strmiska
Michael Strmiska, instructor in Global Studies, teaches courses in World History and Asian History.
Born in 1960, he grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut, and attended college in western Massachusetts at Hampshire College. After working in the mental health field in the Boston area in the 1980s, he undertook studies in Comparative Religion and History, with an MA degree in South Asian Studies/Religions of India from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a PhD in Religious Studies/Myth Studies from Boston University. Professor Strmiska's dissertation was a comparative study of ancient Indian and Scandinavian afterlife beliefs and religious practices.
In the 1990s, Professor Strmiska taught as an adjunct professor at Hampshire College, Boston University and Northeastern University. In 1996, he received a U.S. government-funded Fulbright Student Fellowship to study Old Norse literature and mythology at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. In 1999, he was hired to teach Religious Studies and European History at Miyazaki International College in Miyazaki, Japan, where he remained from 1999-2004, gaining a deep appreciation of Japanese history and culture. For the 2004-05 school year, Professor Strmiska was awarded a second Fulbright Fellowship, this time to teach History and Humanities at Siauliai University in Lithuania. Returning to the USA in summer of 2005, Professor Strmiska taught World History at Central Connecticut State University and Cape Cod Community College. Researches carried out in Iceland and Lithuania were key components of Professor Strmiska's 2005 book, Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives.
Professor Strmiska has presented academic papers at conferences in the United States, Canada, Britain, Belgium, Lithuania, Czech Republic, and Greece, and published scholarly articles in such journals as Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, The Journal of Religious History, and The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. Professor Strmiska also serves on the editorial board of The Pomegranate. During the 2007-08 school year, Professor Strmiska was selected by the Massachusetts Council on International Education as their Lecturer on International Education. for a presentation comparing the use of testing in Japanese education with the increasing emphasis on testing in American education.
Since joining the Department of Global Studies at SUNY-Orange in August of 2008, Professor Strmiska has taught the courses World History To 1500, World History Since 1500, Modern China and Japan and Modern India and Southeast Asia. He hopes to introduce an honors version of Modern China and Japan and a course on The History of the Vikings in the future.
Sarah Wells, Room 104
845-341-4345
michael.strmiska@sunyorange.edu