Coffee Cups. Views and Analysis by Seth Ward.

Dr. Seth Ward has been teaching at the University of Wyoming since January 2003, where he teaches Islam and Middle East in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. Previously, Ward taught at the University of Denver for ten years, where he directed the University of Denver’s Institute for Islamic-Judaic Studies. Ward also taught as a sabbatical replacement and lecturer at CU-Boulder for two years, where he taught Islamic Religion and introduced a program of studies in Jewish History. Ward has also taught at Colorado College and the University of Colorado, Denver. He came to the University of Denver after six years in Israel teaching at the University of Haifa and the Technion.

Ward received his academic degrees from Yale University, with additional studies at Hebrew University and at the Jewish Theological Seminary. His teaching has included courses on Islam, Middle East, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, Encounters between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Women in Judaism, The Splendor of Spain, Jewish Mysticism, and other topics. Ward initiated and taught the Arabic program at the University of Denver, and has taught both Arabic and Hebrew at UW.

Dr. Ward was the first Research Fellow at the University of Colorado—Colorado Springs Sephardic and Crypto-Jewish Studies Program, in 2013-14. He has lectured on the Crypto-Judaism topic on the UCCS campus, as well as at meetings of the Society for Crypto-Jewish Studies and other academic conferences, at the Gloria Mound Library of Netanya Academic College in Israel, and in China, Britain and Spain. 

As a Wyoming Council for the Humanities Forum presenter, Ward has lectured on Islam, Middle East and other issues in towns and community colleges throughout Wyoming; he has given community lectures in other regional states and is a frequent lecturer in Colorado, as well as academic and community lectures elsewhere in the US, in Canada and overseas. Dr. Ward directs an annual Middle East Field Course on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Holocaust and the State of Israel, in Israel with excursions to Egypt and Jordan. The Field Course is available for credit for UW students and students at other universities, as well as on a non-credit basis.

Ward's academic interests include the Jews of Muslim Lands, Jewish-Muslim relations, Crypto-Jews, Mormon-Jewish relations (he is coeditor of a volume entitled Covenant and Chosenness in Judaism and Mormonism), and Islamic sacred and legal texts about Jews and Israel. He is widely published in a number of scholarly journals, blogs and posts articles via http://drsethward.wordpress.com, and has written about Synagogues and Churches under Islam.