Carina Johnson

Carina Johnson is the Peter and Gloria Gold Professor of History at Pitzer College, specializing in early modern European history with a focus on cross-cultural encounters, proto-ethnography, and the material traces of empire. She holds a PhD and MA from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA from Yale College in Archaeological Studies and History. Her research explores the intersections of violence, memory, and cultural identity in the sixteenth-century Habsburg Empire, alongside decolonial analyses of global early modernity.

• Educational Background
  • PhD, University of California, Berkeley, History
  • MA, University of California, Berkeley, History
  • BA, Yale College, summa cum laude, Archaeological Studies and History

Professor Johnson's work engages material and visual culture, religious identities, and theories of colonialism. Her publications often address cross-cultural methodologies and interdisciplinary approaches to early modern subjects, including her co-edited special issue of Modern Philology titled "Multiplicities: Recasting the Global Early Modern."

She has received prestigious awards such as the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) Fellowship, the Nina Maria Gorrissen Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin, and NEH and Huntington Library fellowships. Her courses include "Empire and Sexuality," "Hybrid Identities," and "Pandemic Histories," reflecting her commitment to integrating global perspectives into historical analysis.