Dr. Jochen S. Arndt teaches advanced courses in African history and a two-semester freshmen course in World history. Geographically anchored in Africa in general and South Africa in particular, his research emphasizes global themes, notably the encounters between Africans and non-Africans and the dynamics unleashed by these encounters in terms of knowledge production and racial, ethnic, religious, and linguistic identity formation. With funding from a Social Sciences Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship and an American Historical Association’s Bernadotte Schmitt Research Grant, he recently completed his book Divided by the Word: Colonial Encounters and the Remaking of Zulu and Xhosa Identities. The book will be published in the Reconsiderations of Southern African History Series of The University of Virginia Press. He also serves as an Honorary Research Scholar at the Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Joel C. Christenson is Associate Professor and Director of the John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis. Prior to joining the VMI faculty he served as Senior Historian in the Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), where he worked on the Secretaries of Defense Historical Series and coordinated long-term historical research and publishing. Before joining OSD he worked in the Policy Studies Division of the Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. He holds a Ph.D. in American history from West Virginia University, where his research examined the origins of U.S. naval and military advising in Latin America. Prior to his doctoral work, Joel worked as a Senior Defense Analyst for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and as a Research Assistant at the Institute for Defense Analyses. He is a distinguished graduate of VMI (Class of 1999) and holds master’s degrees from the University of Kentucky and George Mason University, as well as a Command and Staff Diploma from the U.S. Naval War College. 

Professor M. Houston Johnson V specializes in the history of the 20th century United States, with an emphasis on aviation history and the New Deal era. He teaches courses including The Progressive Era, The New Deal, War and Society in 20th Century United States History, The Vietnam War, and Historical Methodology; he also offers capstone seminars on the New Deal Era and World War II. His book, Taking Flight: The Foundations of American Commercial Aviation, 1918-1938 (Texas A&M University Press, 2019), explores the federal government’s role in promoting the development of commercial aviation between the world wars. He has published articles on aviation infrastructure in the Journal of Policy History and the Journal of East Tennessee History; essays on the air war in the European theater of World War II and Lieutenant General Leonard Gerow’s role in the Normandy campaign are forthcoming with Oxford University Press and Global War Studies, respectively. Johnson also served as the Associate Editor of the Sage Encyclopedia of Military Science.

Johnson came to VMI in 2012 after receiving degrees from Roanoke College and the University of Tennessee. The Virginia Military Institute has recognized his teaching with the Wilbur S. Hinman, Jr. ’26 Research Award (2017; 2019), and his scholarship with the Jackson-Hope Prize for Excellence in Published Scholarly Work (2020). Johnson has served as the Head of the Department of History since 2020; his other activities include service as a Program Director for the Olmsted Foundation study abroad program.

Professor and Department Head
History