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Erik Glowark

Erik Glowark PhD

Assistant Professor, history

Erik Glowark is Assistant Professor of History at Johnson County Community College. He received a B.A. in both History and Humanities at the University of Louisville. After teaching English in Japan for several years, he completed a Ph.D. in History at the University of Oregon.

Erik received a Fulbright-Hays DDRA award to conduct dissertation research in Tokyo. His project, which focused on the Jesuit mission on Kyushu during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, recently won the World History Association’s annual prize for best doctoral dissertation in world, global, or transnational history. His forthcoming article, “The Christian Seas of Kyushu: How Local Maritime Networks Facilitated the Introduction of Catholicism to Japan in the Mid-Sixteenth Century” (The Journal of World History, Vol. 33, No. 2; June 2022), shows how Japanese Christians already engaged in maritime activity greatly contributed to the religion’s success in the western part of the country.

Erik has a wide range of historical interests, including world history, Japan, China, the Roman Empire, late antiquity, religious history, piracy, the Pacific War, and maritime history. He is particularly interested in exploring the world-historical dimensions of how religions, such as Buddhism and Christianity, moved across cultures during the premodern period. He has taught courses on Western Civilization, World History, Piracy in East Asia, Japanese Religions, and the Pacific War.