Weeks, Charles A. 1937–

PERSONAL:

Born November 15, 1937, in Highland Park, MI; son of Charles E. and Harriette E. Weeks. Education: Dartmouth College, A.B., 1960; University of Michigan, A.M., 1965; Indiana University, Ph.D., 1973. Hobbies and other interests: Travel, cycling, and music.

ADDRESSES:

Home— Jackson, MS. E-mail— charlesweeks@earthlink.net.

CAREER:

Educator and historian. Mercersburg Academy, Mercersburg, PA, teacher, 1960-68, 1977-79; Gould Academy, Bethel, ME, teacher, 1973-77; St. Andrew's Episcopal School, Jackson, MS, teacher, 1979-97; St. Paul's School, Concord, NH, 1999-2000, 2006—. Adjunct instructor at Mississippi College, Clinton, MS, 1998-99, and Millsaps College, Jackson, MS, 1987-88; Mississippi Department of Archives and History scholar-in-residence, 1988-90; taught courses for a semester at Indiana University, Bloomington, 1976, and Indiana University at Fort Wayne, 1972.

MEMBER:

Mississippi Committee for the Columbus Quincentenary.

AWARDS, HONORS:

National Defense Foreign Language fellow, 1968-69, 1969-70; Fulbright-Hays doctoral dissertation fellowship, 1971; independent study in the humanities fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1984; star teacher award, Mississippi Economic Council, 1986, 1990; teacher-scholar award, National Endowment for the Humanities/Reader's Digest,1990-91.

WRITINGS:

El Mito de Juárez en México, Editorial Jus (Mexico City, Mexico), 1977, published as The Juárez Myth in Mexico, University of Alabama Press (Tuscaloosa, AL), 1987.

(Compiler, with Sarah J. Banks)Mississippi's Spanish Heritage: Selected Writings, 1492-1798, edited by Caroline S. Kelly, Mississippi State Department of Education (Jackson, MS), 1992.

Paths to a Middle Ground: The Diplomacy of Natchez, Boukfouka, Nogales, and San Fernando De Las Barrancas, 1791-1795, University of Alabama Press (Tuscaloosa, AL), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals and reference journals, including Encyclopedia of American Journalism, Dictionary of American History: Supplement, Focus on the Humanities, Il Politico, México en la Cultura Novedades, South-Eastern Latin Americanist, Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, Volume 3, and Journal of Mississippi History.

SIDELIGHTS:

Charles A. Weeks is an American educator and historian who has travelled around the United States and the world in pursuit of knowledge. He earned a bachelor's degree with a specialization in European history in 1960 from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Upon graduation he began an eight-year period working at Mercersburg Academy, in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, as a teacher. During this time he also earned his master's degree from the University of Michigan, focusing his research on the history of the United States. He also was a Fulbright-Hays fellow for the summer seminar in Spanish. From 1968 to 1970 he was a National Defense Foreign Language fellow. He taught a course on United States history at Indiana University at Fort Wayne in 1972, and by 1973 he had earned a Ph.D. in Latin American history from Indiana University at Bloomington. With his doctorate, he began teaching U.S. history, Spanish, and literature at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. By 1976 he was named head of the language department. However, in 1977 he returned to Mercersburg Academy for two more years and simultaneously published his first book in Spanish,El Mito de Juárez en México. It was not for another decade, though, that the book was published in English as The Juárez Myth in Mexico.

In 1979 he moved to Jackson, Mississippi, to take up a teaching position at St. Andrew's Episcopal School. There he taught and developed courses in humanities, economics, philosophy, international politics, Spanish, and Mexican and Latin American Studies. In nearly twenty years of teaching at the school, Weeks was eventually named head of the Upper School humanities department and advised students who worked on the school's literary and art magazine. During his time at St. Andrew's, Weeks twice won the Mississippi Economic Council's star teacher award. He was also awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities/Reader's Digest teacher-scholar award and was granted a National Endowment for the Humanities independent study in the humanities fellowship. Weeks also served as a scholar-in-residence with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and as an adjunct instructor in Mexican history and U.S.-Latin American relations at Millsaps College. In 1992 Weeks compiled his second book, with Sarah J. Banks,Mississippi's Spanish Heritage: Selected Writings, 1492-1798. Weeks left St. Andrew's in 1997 and served as an adjunct instructor for a year at Mississippi College, lecturing in Latin American Studies. Weeks later moved to Concord, New Hampshire, to teach humanities for two school years at St. Paul's School.

In 2005 Weeks published Paths to a Middle Ground: The Diplomacy of Natchez, Boukfouka, Nogales, andSan Fernando De Las Barrancas, 1791-1795. The book analyzes the diplomatic relations of the Spanish with the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees in the modern Mississippi area at the end of the eighteenth century. Sophie Burton, reviewing the book in the Journal of Southern History, called Paths to a Middle Ground "a much-needed exploration of an understudied region in a neglected period."

Weeks told CA: "I began with a general interest in the world that led to a decision to pursue a liberal arts education beyond high school and to teach. Teaching provoked or stimulated further interest in what I was teaching and a need to know more. That led to graduate education and a dissertation. The dissertation became the first book (The Juárez Myth in Mexico), published first in Spanish (El Mito de Juárez en México) in Mexico, [and was later] revised and published in the United States. I received very good advice in graduate school that if one uses other people and institutions to do research, then one has an obligation to share that research through writing and publication with others. My research and writing have resulted from teaching and again, general curiosity about the world disciplines by a desire to investigate limited topics and question and to share what I find and think about them with others."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Journal of Southern History, February, 2007, Sophie Burton, review of Paths to a Middle Ground: The Diplomacy of Natchez, Boukfouka, Nogales, and San Fernando De Las Barrancas, 1791-1795, p. 160.