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Hello. Welcome to the personal web site of Michael Strmiska. As of fall 2008, I have joined the Global Studies Department
of Orange County Community College, also known as SUNY-Orange, in Middletown NY, in the beautiful Hudson Valley area just
north of New York City, where I teach World History and Asian History. This comes after two years teaching World History at
Cape Cod Community College in Barnstable, Massachusetts in the USA, and one year teaching at Central Connecticut State University
in new Britain, Connecticut. In addition to my teaching, 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, and adapt it 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 with
similar interests from the places I have been, especially Iceland, Japan, and the Czech Republic and Lithuania, lands of my
ancestors. Some of my scholarly articles on Paganism can be found in the journals Nova Religio:
The Journal of New and Emergent Religions and The Pomegranate: The International Journal
of Pagan Studies. I am also a contributing editor for The Pomegranate. My two
current research projects are (1) a study of the efforts by Scandinavian "Asatru" Pagans to defend themselves against
associations with Nazism and racism, and (2) the introduction of forms of Eastern religion such as ISKCON (the International
Society for Krishna Consciousness, aka "the Hare Krishnas") and Tibetan Buddhism into Eastern European countries
such as Lithuania and Latvia. For anyone interested in Pagan religions, I recommend the journals
mentioned above, as well as my 2005 volume, Modern Paganism in World Cultures:Comparative
Perspectives, which has essays on contemporary Pagan movements in the USA, Ireland, Iceland, Britain, Ukraine,
Lithuania, with bibliography and web resources for further research and contacts. It is my hope
that the new administration of Barack Obama in the USA will set a new tone for tolerance and dialogue in the USA and beyond.
Let's make it so! Michael Strmiska, PhD
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| Viking-era Runestone, from Swedish island of Gotland, June 2005. |
I am proud to announce that a book that I edited and in part, authored, "Modern Paganism in World Cultures," was published
in December of 2005 by the publisher ABC-CLIO. This book contains essays about Pagan revival movements in Lithuania and Iceland
(my chapters) and in England, Ireland, Ukraine and the USA. It also has a chapter on Pagans in the U.S. Military. The
book is available from the publisher at
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| The Hill of Crosses near city of Siauliai, Lithuania, September 2004. |
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