Tri-C's Brian Johnson Teaches Humanities as a Living Conversation

Most students walk into a humanities class expecting antiquated names and dates. They don’t expect to discuss haunted Pokémon levels or cursed eBay listings. 

As an assistant professor of humanities at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C®), Brian Johnson, Ph.D., enjoys bringing the material in his classes to life by showing its relevance today. 

In his Culture and Belief course, for example, he ties classic texts and ideas to contemporary culture — think Dante meets Creepypasta, and The Oresteia meets online horror myths, such as the Slender Man.  

“Today’s ghost stories are yesterday’s epic poems,” Johnson said. “The medium changes, but the questions don’t. What is evil? What is justice? What do we believe — and why?” 

In all of his courses — ranging from introductory humanities to deep dives into justice, belief systems and art — classical texts are treated as mirrors, reflecting the values and anxieties of every age. 

“I want students to look at a work of art or literature and not feel like they need to read a plaque in a museum to understand it,” he said. “They should feel like it belongs to them.” 

A Cross-Country Start 

A native of northern California, Johnson earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English in 2000 and 2003, respectively. But when he decided to pursue his Ph.D., he took a piece of academic advice he’d received to heart. 

“I was told, ‘If you’re going to get your Ph.D., you shouldn’t stay where you are because then it just lets everybody know that you won’t move,’” he said. 

He ultimately landed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Recently married, he and his wife drove 2,000 miles to a state that “felt like another country” and began a nearly decade-long stretch on the East Coast. 

He received his Ph.D. in 2010 and landed a full-time visiting professor position at the now-closed Marlboro College in Vermont — a tiny liberal arts school tucked away on an old apple farm.  

Landing in Cleveland 

After spending a year at Marlboro, Johnson and his family found their way to Ohio when he landed a teaching opportunity at Case Western Reserve University through the Seminar Approach to General Education and Scholarship (SAGES) program. When the three-year contract at CWRU ended, he decided to make Beachwood his family’s permanent home, especially since he had two kids in the local school system.  

He worked at Cleveland State University for about two years before learning about an opening at Tri-C’s newly formed Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Humanities Center on the Eastern Campus. 

Johnson was hired as the College’s first official humanities professor. He’s become a cornerstone of the Mandel Scholars Academy, teaching and designing courses for the humanities. 

“I was just kind of hired to figure out how Mandel’s curricula would work and to be the present and quasi-permanent feature for the students’ experience of Mandel,” Johnson said. 

He also enjoys working with students in an advisory capacity and helping them move on to four-year institutions. He has collaborated with CSU’s Jack, Joseph & Morton Mandel Honors College, CWRU’s Cleveland Humanities Collaborative and other universities. 

“I’ve got a lot of success stories,” he said. “I've sent students on to tons of schools, and I love that.” 

In addition, he has enjoyed taking second-year Mandel students on study trips, from Alabama to Italy and Japan. 

“It’s been really successful,” Johnson said. “I’m hoping it carries forward. It’s a great thing for the students.” 

Other scholarly pursuits 

Johnson has two books to his name published by Lexington Press: he served as an editor on The Function of Evil Across Disciplinary Contexts and wrote The Nazi Card: Nazi Comparisons at the Beginning of the Cold War. 

As a fan of postmodern literature, he has long been fascinated by works steeped in moral ambiguity by authors such as Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. In these works, he noted a common theme: Nazis.  

From Raiders of the Lost Ark to Star Wars, Johnson notes that Nazi imagery and tropes pervade American pop culture, showing how they’ve become a cultural shorthand for evil. In his books, Johnson examines how these references function in literature, film and political speech and what happens when the definition of “Nazi” shifts over time. 

Johnson is quick to note that he doesn’t teach about Nazis extensively in his humanities courses.  

“It’s not my students’ job to become experts in that,” he said. “It’s mine. I want to teach them how to think critically — not just what I know.” 

Whether he’s leading a classroom discussion or building a new curriculum, his ultimate goal is to meet students where they are and treat their insights as valuable — helping them develop a deeper understanding of themselves and the world. 

“The humanities let us explore those strange nooks and crannies of human experience,” Johnson said. “And that’s where the learning really happens.”

August 27, 2026

Noelle Bye, 216-987-4747 or noelle.bye@tri-c.edu