About

About Me:

Here is my Bio. (This leads to a Gravatar site).

https://about.me/seth_ward (Somewhat longer bio at About.me)

see also below.

My CV

UPDATE Policy: The usual “About Me” details are mostly on the Gravatar site and elsewhere, so I have not added to them here. The Main Menu of this blog should have “Other Sites” with links to some although not all of the locations I have used for various online postings over the years.

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The About.Me Bio (last edited in this space Jan. 2024.)

Dr. Seth Ward taught Islam, Judaism and Middle East in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Wyoming from January 2003 to retirement in the summer of 2022. 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, introducing a Judaic Studies program, at Colorado College and the University of Colorado, Denver and came to Denver after six years teaching at the University of Haifa and the Technion.

Ward’s degrees are from Yale University, with additional studies at Hebrew University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. His PhD studied Shari’a law relating to Synagogues and Churches. He taught courses on Islam, Middle East, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, Encounters between religions, Women in Judaism, Women and Islam, Splendor of Spain, Kabbalah and Sufism, and other topics. Ward initiated and taught the Arabic program at the University of Denver and taught both Arabic and Hebrew at UW. He was a Wyoming Humanities Council “ThinkWy” presenter for over a decade and is a Brandeis Schusterman Institute for Israel Studies Fellow.

Ward has been an Expert Witness and Consultant for cases involving Islamic, Jewish or Middle East issues, including deposition and court testimony about Muslim prisoners, religious civil rights, marital status and more.

Dr. Ward’s interests include Jewish-Muslim relations, comparative religion and scripture, Crypto-Judaism, Medieval and modern Middle East studies, Hebrew, Arabic and related languages, including translation and teaching, Jewish and Israeli music and more. Dr. Ward is a Board member of the Society for Crypto-Jewish Studies and Western Judaic Studies Association, and President of the Board of Directors of the Colorado Hebrew Chorale http://coloradohebrewchorale.org. He enjoys keeping up with former students and colleagues, and conducting Alumni interviews.

Dr. Ward has led Saturday morning services at what’s now known as Kehillat Kavod for over three decades.

From 2009-2019, Dr. Ward directed an annual Middle East Field Course on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Holocaust and the State of Israel, with excursions to Egypt and Jordan, and is available to consult, lead or organize Middle East travel.

He is widely published in scholarly journals, and posts at https://drsethward.wordpress.com.
email: sward@uwyo.edu

The Coffeecup Challenge!

Create your own montage of images of YOUR favorite coffee cups!

Send the images as an email to sward@uwyo.edu. Please make the subject line “coffeecups” or “for upload to coffeecups blog.” If you are able to attach the image as a Comment to this post, that’s OK too.  I will set up a special “Coffeecups” gallery on this Blog for these images.

The Name Coffeecups:

I decided to change the name of my blog on Posterous.com to Coffecups on International Coffee Day (Sept. 29) in 2012. In part, it is in homage to the late Haim Hefer who died on September 18 2012, from whom, it could be said, I learned the recipe for “the drink of kings” מלאכת משקה המלכים (although unlike the Palmahniks in Hefer’s lyrics, I drink mine without sugar). There is irony here; the Biblical mashke ha-melekh, I Kings 10:21 and 2 Chronicles 9:20, and similar references to royal drinking, e.g., in Esther, do not refer to coffee!

It was an experimental name–I figured it is non-political, non-limiting and may give the impression that the pieces I post on the web were crafted or at least posted while I was drinking coffee, which often would be true. I kept the name for this blog when Posterous was taken down and I moved the blog to a number of places, including this location.

Interestingly, China has a National Coffee Day in early April, observed according to the traditional Chinese lunar calendar–even though I did not find much of a coffee culture in China and I cannot find the actual lunar calendar date or the day on which it falls this year. When I was there in the summer of 2012, usually it was impossible to get good coffee except for Starbucks. I had a coffee in the McDonald’s in the Shanghai Pudong Airport, which was very much American style coffee, although not good at all.

This is the main location for most of my postings, although items specifically related to teaching, words and programs (especially for the Colorado Hebrew Chorale) are mostly posted on https://swarduwcourses.wordpress.com and https://wordsprograms.wordpress.com. There are some other sites as well, some of which are just experiments with alternates or other places for filesharing.