Faculty Bio

Matthew Bowser

Assistant Professor in the Department of History

Education

• B.Phil., history/classics, University of Pittsburgh
• M.A., world history, Northeastern University
• Ph.D., world history, Northeastern University

About

Matthew Bowser is an Assistant Professor of Modern World History at Ohio Wesleyan University. He is the author of Containing Decolonisation: British Imperialism and the Politics of Race in Late Colonial Burma (2025) with Manchester University Press. His research focuses on decolonization in Asia, examining the intersections of imperialism, race, nationalism, and capitalism in the process of achieving independence from colonial rule. He has also published to this effect in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, the Journal of Asian Studies, and the Journal of Modern Asian Studies.

He defended his dissertation and received his Ph.D. in Modern World History from Northeastern University in 2020. Before that, he graduated from the University of Pittsburgh Honors College with a B.Phil. in History and Classics.

As the resident professor of World History at Ohio Wesleyan, Prof. Bowser teaches courses on Modern World History, Colonialism and Imperialism, Decolonizing the Modern World, Modern Asia: From Turkey to Tokyo, Historical Inquiry, and more. For a full Curriculum Vitae, list of publications, and classes taught, see: matthew-bowser.com