WSU Professor uses Global Experiences for Education

By Conor Devitt

I). Background on Charles Weller

·         Places of Study

·         Crowning Achievement

·         Experience Kazakhstan

II). Dissertation Controversy

·         Reasons for Controversy

·         Response

·         Overall Experience

III). Life after Kazakhstan

·         University Experiences

·         Guest Lectures

·         Student Response

Charles Weller encountered global firsts, worldwide friends and national controversies during his studies and research abroad.

The WSU professor has lived across the globe in places such as Kazakhstan and Japan in effort to further his studies of cultural and religious differences and interactions.

In fact, Professor Weller is, to his knowledge, the first and only Westerner to write a dissertation completely in the Kazakh language, a feat accomplished after living there from 1995-1999 and 2002-2006.

“[Living in Kazakhstan] helped change my perspective on the relationship of religions and cultures as well as politics, i.e. international relations, in the world,” Weller said.

Weller studied religious-cultural history and achieved his Ph. D. at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University while he was in Kazakhstan. His knowledge of the Kazak language was very little before his first four year-stint in the Central Asian country.

“It was definitely challenging,” said Weller when asked about the difficulties of living in Kazakhstan, “in terms of bureaucracy, daily life, and certain social attitudes.”

His dissertation in Kazakhstan became especially challenging. Written on the topic of religion and culture and how they influenced each other, his work became a national controversy as certain conservative Islamic revivalists protested an American studying Islamic history in the Kazakh language.

“The people that attacked me and my dissertation work really had no contact with me, no personal knowledge of me, they didn’t work with me,” Weller said. “They didn’t even read my work very much, for that matter. It was more of an external image thing for the most part.”

His dissertation was not published in Kazakhstan due to the controversy and the Kazakh Ministry of Education delayed release of his degree by two additional years. However, Weller continues to think about his time in Kazakhstan with a positive outlook.

“For the most part all of my visits were marked by very hospitable people and good friendships,” Weller said. “To this day I still have good relations with scholars and others from there.”

In fact, Weller has such good relations with his former associates in Central Asia that he has been asked to teach in Kazakhstan this spring. Should his schedule allow it, Weller will leave in mid-May after the school year is over and teach at his former university for a month.

In 2006 Weller moved from Kazakhstan to Japan where he continued his cultural research. After four years in Japan, he spent a year as a visiting fellow at Yale University. In 2011 Weller came to WSU, where he has since taught courses in Central Asian, Middle Eastern, Islamic and world history.

“With all of negative associations people have to the Middle East, and the preconceived notions people have, Dr. Weller does a great job keeping an open unbiased atmosphere where students can feel comfortable asking questions and discussing relevant issues,” sophomore Ali Brooks said. “The Middle East and religion are two incredibly sensitive topics, and yet he managed to teach about both objectively and without offending anyone.”

Weller’s cultural prowess and knowledge of Central Asia is recognized throughout the country. He gave public lectures at Yale in the fall of 2010 and Princeton in the spring of 2011. This April he will visit UCLA to give a public lecture on the religious and cultural history of Kazakhstan in the post-Soviet period. In May he will deliver a similar lecture at the University of Washington.

The Journal of Islamic Studies will publish Weller’s most recent article, ‘Religious-Cultural Revivalism as Historiographical Debate: Contending Claims in the Post-Soviet Kazakh Context’ either in late 2013 or early 2014.

Students who have had Weller in class appreciate his seasoned and knowledgeable viewpoints.

“The experiences he gained from his college days in Kazakhstan really made his class interesting,” sophomore Ryan Pearce said. “He brought a unique perspective to the classroom, which I really appreciated.”