Office Hours
Wednesdays, 1:30–4:30 pm
Education
PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
MA, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
BA, University of Florida
About Me
Luke Jeske’s research focuses on the relationships among religion, mobility, modernity, and empire in the history of imperial Russia. He examined these subjects in his dissertation, “Faith and Empire: Russian Orthodox Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 1800-1914,” which focuses on the understudied history of a religious practice that encompassed tens of thousands of believers and which attracted substantial support and attention from the tsarist government. Currently, Dr. Jeske is conducting additional research to refashion that work into an academic monograph. At present, his research indicates that: 1) Orthodox piety served as a shared connective tissue and mobilizing factor among a diverse swath of nineteenth-century Russians 2) pilgrimage provided important opportunities for tsarist authorities to cultivate their empire’s image as a powerful, religiously-minded geopolitical power on the world stage 3) pilgrimage also generated numerous frictions between those authorities and the peasant-heavy population of pilgrims eager to practice or adapt their faith in intriguing and sometimes unorthodox manners. To situate these findings in a broader context, Dr. Jeske is also developing scholarly articles studying Russian Orthodox pilgrimage to Mount Athos, the Russian Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IPPO), and tsarist geopolitical strategies in the Holy Land.
Dr. Jeske’s project has been generously supported by the Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Fellowship Program, which helped fund both the research and writing of his work, as well as grants from UNC’s Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies and the Title VIII Program at UIUC Summer Research Lab. Additionally, he has benefitted from FLAS awards and the ARIT Summer Fellowship for Advanced Turkish Language.
At Auburn, Dr. Jeske teaches the World History survey (HIST 1010, HIST 1020), which explores some of the most fascinating peoples, places, and events that have shaped humanity’s long and winding journey to our present moment.
Research Interests
Imperial Russia, Eastern Christianity, Travel/Mobility, Empires
Publications
“Bringing the Holy Land Home: Russian Orthodox Pilgrims’ Relics, Souvenirs, and Spiritual Wealth, 1880-1914,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History (under review).
Courses Taught
HIST 1010: World History to 1500
HIST 1020: World History since 1500