Michael Johnston

About

Michael Johnston is a professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of English at Purdue University. He specializes in the history of the book in late medieval England, with a focus on Middle English literature, romance, and the history of reading and scribal practices. His scholarly work includes two monographs published by Oxford University Press: 'Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England' (2014) and 'The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350–1500' (2023). He is currently working on a catalogue of manuscripts of 'The Prick of Conscience' and a monograph about the manuscript tradition of this poem. Additionally, he has a long-standing interest in the authorship of 'Piers Plowman,' with two essays on the subject. At Purdue, he teaches a wide range of courses in early British literature and introductory courses for the English major.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Environmental health
• Psychiatry
• Law and economics
• Epistemology
• Political economy
• Intensive care medicine

Selected publications

• The Memory Paradox: Why Our Brains Need Knowledge in an Age of AI

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 13 citations

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Political Corruption

  2024-12-13 · 5 citations

  book
  PublisherDOI

• The Persistence of Patronage Systems: An Introduction

  2024-12-13 · 2 citations

  book-chapter

  Patronage systems typically involve patrons-individuals, groups of individuals, or organizations that dispense such things as favors, protection, money, employment, or goods to clients, or people who usually look to the patrons for these benefits and in return give them loyalty, political support, or service. Patronage systems, when they operate outside the law or at the normative margins of society, can engender corrupt exchange relationships. These selections examine how patronage systems, som…

  PublisherDOI

• The Memory Paradox: Why Our Brains Need Knowledge in an Age of AI

  2025-06-19 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  This chapter offers the first neuroscience-based theory linking the reversal of the Flynn Effect—documented declines in IQ scores across high-income countries since the 1970s—to the growing prevalence of cognitive offloading and pedagogical trends that minimize direct knowledge acquisition. Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, learning theory, and memory systems research, we argue that widespread underuse of the brain’s declarative and procedural systems has weakened internal representations—schem…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Memory Paradox: Why Our Brains Need Knowledge in an Age of AI

  ArXiv.org · 2025-05-03 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  In the age of generative AI and ubiquitous digital tools, human cognition faces a structural paradox: as external aids become more capable, internal memory systems risk atrophy. Drawing on neuroscience and cognitive psychology, this paper examines how heavy reliance on AI systems and discovery-based pedagogies may impair the consolidation of declarative and procedural memory -- systems essential for expertise, critical thinking, and long-term retention. We review how tools like ChatGPT and calcu…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ming‐Sound Tsao

  51 shared

• Michael Boyer

  50 shared

• Yi‐Long Wu

  Southern Medical University

  50 shared

• Jorge Ignacio

  University of the Philippines Manila

  50 shared

• Tony Mok

  Chinese University of Hong Kong

  50 shared

• Kate Jin

  Roche (Switzerland)

  49 shared

• Chong‐Jen Yu

  National Taiwan University Hospital

  49 shared

• Vichien Srimuninnimit

  Siriraj Hospital

  49 shared

Awards & honors

• Oxford University Press monograph (2014)
• Oxford University Press monograph (2023)

Similar researchers at Purdue University

• Robert Paul Lambh-36
• Arkady Plotnitskyh-20
• John Duvallh-14