Eric W. Johnson (he/him/his)

I have followed a career path which spans both technology and history. I am now working to bring these interests and experiences together to support the department as it explores new avenues for applying emerging technologies to historical research, outreach, and pedagogy.

My historical interests include Russia, Central Asia and the Muslim world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with particular emphasis on economic life and networks of commercial and intellectual exchange; cultural, ethnic and confessional borderlands and the interactions occurring there; urban settings and their unique spatial and cultural dynamics; and the mechanics, ideologies and practices of empire.

My dissertation ("Our Dear Kazan": Urban Initatives and Imperial Legacies), provides an urban history of the Russian city of Kazan, focused on the period from 1774 to 1860. It explores how the diversity of the empire, new practices of local self-government, and the emergence of a cadre of educated professionals came together to change the way in which residents lived, the way they thought about the city, and the way they connected it to the empire. This research has also inspired my ongoing digital history project, Kazan 19th c. | Казань XIX в.

In addition to my work with the department, I am currently developing my dissertation into a monograph. I am also developing a co-authored volume for Brill's Inner Asian Library Series, focused on Kazakh diplomatic correspondance with the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century.