My work focuses on religious-cultural identity and relations in Western-Islamic and world history, with a special view to the intersection between Jewish, Christian, Muslim, native-indigenous and secular traditions within Russian & Islamic Central Asia, the Middle East and United States.

I resided for eight total years in Kazakhstan, completing my Ph.D. in the Kazakh language under two nationally-recognized Kazakh scholars at al-Farabi Kazakh Nat'l University. After several more years of research and translation work in Japan focused on 19th- and early 20th-century trans-Asian and pan-Islamic history, I returned to the U.S. as a visiting fellow at Yale University (2010-11) before joining the department of history at WSU. I have also had appointments as a visiting researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU, 2014-19) and as an affiliate faculty for research with the Department of History at George Mason University (2021-22). 

Along with a number of works in both English and Kazakh, I have published several recent monographs and edited volumes, including (click on underlined titles for weblinks):

Moses, Muhammad and Nature’s God in Early American Religious-Legal History, 1640-1830: A Global Crosscultural Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

‘Pre-Islamic Survivals’ in Muslim Central Asia: Tsarist, Soviet and Post-Soviet Ethnography in World Historical Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

Editor, 21st-Century Narratives of World History: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, w/ a Foreword by Peter Stearns (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 

Co-editor with Anver Emon, Reason, Revelation and Law in Islamic and Western Theory and History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

Along with the above, some of my most cited & accessed works include:

"‘Western’ and ‘White Civilization’: White Nationalism and Eurocentrism at the Crossroads," in 21st-Century Narratives of World History: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, pp. 35-80.

“The Historical Relation of Islamic and Western Law,” in Reason, Revelation and Law in Islamic and Western Theory and History, pp. 25-43.

"(Rvw of) Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane, by S. Frederick Starr," Journal of Religious History, Vol 39, No 2 (June 2015): 327-329.

"(Extended) Review of The Great Game, 1856-1907: Russo-British Relations in Central and East Asia, by Evgeny Sergeev," Reviews in History, June 2014 (review no. 1611).

Current research & publication projects include:

Moses, Muhammad and Their Laws in American & Transatlantic Slave History.

Legacies of the Abrahamic Divine Law Traditions in the Continuing Debates over Slavery & Race in World History

Toward Disentangling Western & White History & Identity: Christianity, White Nationalism & Eurocentrism at the Crossroads (which builds upon my previous chapter in 21st-Century Narratives of World History on "‘Western’ and ‘White Civilization’: White Nationalism and Eurocentrism at the Crossroads").

(Click here for my Amazon Author Page along with a select listing of my works in university & public libraries around the world)

Throughout my academic career, I have actively participated as a member in various professional associations, including the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS), American Historical Association (AHA) and World History Association (WHA). I have given invited lectures at Yale, Princeton, Georgetown, UCLA and University of Washington as well as universities, Peace Corps, historical-cultural centers and other international venues in Kazakhstan, Japan and India.

As former founder and chair of the Central Asian Historical-Cultural Research Center and Asia Research Associates, I have overseen the translation and/or publication of several works by international scholars, including:

Walker Connor, The National Question in Marxist-Leninist Theory and Strategy, Memorial Edition, ed. Robert J. Kaiser (2019). (Originally published by Princeton University Press)

Garifolla Esim, An Insider's Critique of the Kazakh Nation: Reflections on the Writings of Abai Kunanbai-uhli (2020). 

Garifolla Esim, The Agony of Socialism: Kazakh Memoirs of the Soviet Past (2017). 

R.S. Khangarot, Jaigarh, the Invincible Fort of Amber & Other Select Essays on Indian History (forthcoming).

My teaching includes World History, Roots of Contemporary Issues, Medicine, Science & Technology in World History, Middle Eastern & Islamic history, Western Civilization, History of Christian-Muslim/Western-Islamic Relations, Religious-Cultural Encounter along the Silk Road, various independent (499) studies on world religious and Western-Islamic history, undergraduate and graduate-doctoral seminars at Kazakh Nat'l University on Central Asian religious history & identity, and more. I have served as co-instructor and coordinator for the Seminar in Asian Studies at WSU. I have also served as 'foreign advisor' for a number of Kazakh doctoral students doing religious-cultural history & identity in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, hosting them as international visiting scholars at Washington State University. I have received two 'Excellence in Teaching' awards, a Learning Communities Excellence Award, a Critical Literacies Achievement and Success Program (CLASP) Faculty Award, and an Award for Promoting Tolerance, Diversity & Inclusiveness.