Michael Strmiska :: Web Site

Hello. Welcome to the personal web site of Michael Strmiska. In fall 2006, I will begin life as a professor of World History at Cape Cod Community College in Barnstable, Massachusetts in the USA, after teaching for one year in Connecticut. I teach courses on World History, Western Civilization and hope to teach in future about Japan and Scandinavia. I conduct research on Pagan religions of ancient Europe and modern Pagan revival movements. My teaching and research draw on my international experiences in Europe and Asia, which are a very special part of my life that I am very proud of. From September 1996 through June 1997, I studied at the University of Iceland through a Fulbright Student Fellowship. I retain strong affection for the beautiful country of Iceland and the exciting city of Reykjavik. From January 1999 through July of 2004, I was a professor of Religious Studies and History at Miyazaki International College, a unique English-language, liberal arts college in Miyazaki, Kyushu, Japan. I developed a deep appreciation of ancient Japanese culture, including the Shinto religion, and also modern Japanese society. My favorite city in Japan is Nagasaki, which has a very unique character and many beautiful Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. From September 2004 through June 2005, I was a Fulbright Fellow Lecturer in Religious Studies and Humanities at Siauliai University in Lithuania. I had visited Lithuania many times before this, and was already familiar with the exquisite capital city Vilnius and the coastal city of Klaipeda, as well as Kaunas, Lithuania's second city and home of the great Vytautas Magnus University. Siauliai was a poorer, rougher and more difficult place for me, and I learned a great deal about the stresses of post-Soviet life in Lithuania. I met many wonderful people, especially my intelligent and hard-working students. Apart from living in America, Iceland, Japan, and Lithuania, I have traveled to England, Wales, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Latvia and Russia, as well as China, Japan, Singapore and Korea. I am very interested in religion, folklore, history and all the traditions that make each people and culture unique, and provide roots in the past that give nourishment to the hopes of the future. We should never be prisoners of history, but I also believe that we should not see ourselves as orphans or refugees from the past. Truly free people are able to choose from the past what they need for the present and future. I believe we should aspire to that freedom. In my work and life, I seek to play what small part I can to promote peace and tolerance between peoples, regions and religions, and am especially concerned with protecting and preserving traditional and indigenous religions under threat in the modern world. I am happy to have contact with others who share this goal, and I am always very glad to meet people from the places I have been, especially Iceland, Japan, and the Czech Republic and Lithuania, lands of my ancestors.