Paul E. Michelson

(260) 573-7151
pmichelson@huntington.edu

Dr. Paul E. Michelson has been a member of the faculty since 1974. He holds the Ph.D from Indiana University in East European, Russian, and West European history and was a three-time Fulbright fellow in Romania (1971-1973, 1982-1983, 1989-1990). His areas of interest and expertise include historiography, Romanian history and political development in the 19th-21st centuries, the history of Romanian Evangelicals prior to Communism. Totalitarianism and post-totalitarian societies, the history of Venice, and the lives and works of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Inklings.

Dr. Michelson was President of the Society for Romanian Studies (2006-2009), Secretary of the Society for Romanian Studies (1977-2006; 2010-2015), Secretary of the Conference on Faith and History (2004-2014), and served as a member of the national board of the South East European Studies Association (1991-2014). He was the faculty sponsor of the HU Alpha Chi National Honor Scholarship Society chapter from 1975-2015, and AX National Council Member 1986-1998 and 2010-2014, and received the Alpha Chi Distinguished Service Award in 2001. He is currently a board member of the C. S. Lewis and Kindred Spirits Society of Central and Eastern Europe and an honorary member of the Romanian Academy’s historical institutes at București, Iași, and Cluj.

Dr. Michelson has lectured frequently at the Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State and universities in the US and abroad. He is a member of the editorial boards of more than a dozen academic journals. His book, Romanian Politics, 1859-1871: From Prince Cuza to Prince Carol (1998) was selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Book for 1998 and was awarded the 2000 Balcescu Prize for History by the Romanian Academy. He was a co-author of A History of Romania (1995; 2nd edition, 1996; 3rd edition, 1997; Czech edition, 2000); and a lead contributor to Richard Frucht, ed., Encyclopedia of East Europe: From the Congress of Vienna to the Fall of Communism (2000), which was a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book for 2000. He has published over 200 articles and books, including most recently: “The Dauntless Don: How C. S. Lewis Became a Public Intellectual, 1938-1944,”Linguaculture, Vol. 15 (2024), Nr. 1, pp. 13-36; “Silviu Dragomir. Historian of the Romanian 1848,” Transylvanian Review, Vol. 33 (2024), Nr. 1, pp. 31-53; “Gheorghe I. Brătianu, Pioneering Medievalist: A Tribute,” Memoriile Secției de Științe Istorice și Arheologie a Academiei Române. Seria V. Vol. 42 (2023), pp. 271-280; “New Reference Books on Romanian Historiography. A Review Essay,”Revista Istorică, Vol. 34 (2023), pp. 417-433; “Varieties of Romanian Liberalism, 1859-1881,” Archiva Moldaviae, Vol. 24 (2022), pp. 19-45; "Gheorghe I. Brătianu in World War I: “Pages Torn from the Book of War," in Gabriel Leanca, ed., Politică și relații internaționale în istoria românilor. Studii în onoarea profesorului Gheorghe Cliveti (Iași: Editura Universității Alexandru Ioan Cuza din Iași, 2023), pp. 353-373; ”C. S. Lewis On Stories,” Linguaculture, Vol. 13 (2022), Nr. 1, pp. 13-37; ”Key Contributions of Keith Hitchins to the Historiography of Romania: A Brief Introduction,” Historical Yearbook, Vol. 19 (2022), pp. 31-45; “C. S. Lewis Comes to Romania, 1977-2022,” in Ion Bolovan and Melania-Gabriela Ciot, eds., Românii și România în context European. Istorie și diplomație. Omagiu profesorului Vasile Pușcaș la împlinirea vârstei de 70 an (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Academia Română/Centrul de Studii Transilvane, 2022), pp. 985-1004; and ”W. H. Lewis: A Bibliographical Excursus,” in Teodora Ghiviriga and Daniela Vasiliu, eds., C. S. Lewis: His Life and Heritage (Iași: Editura Universității Alexandru Ioan Cuza, 2021), pp. 71-92.

In 1997, Dr. Michelson was the recipient of the Huntington College Centennial Medallion. He has also been Huntington University Faculty lecturer four times (1981, 1998, 2009, and 2013). 

For more information, please visit Dr. Michelson's personal website.