Assistant Professor of Religion • Department Chair

Institutional Affiliation

Colorado College
Department of Religion

Education

Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Regional and Thematic Interests

West Asia/Middle East
Religion

Profile

After practicing law first as a sole practitioner from 1991 to 1995 and then as a partner at Cirilano & Wright from 1995 to 2001, Professor Wright received his PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies in the Colorado College Religion Department, where he served as the Faculty Advisor for Arabic and Islamic Studies in 2013. His research interests include the Qu'ran; Hermeneutics (pre-modern and modern, Muslim and non-Muslim); Islamic history and civilization; intertextual relations between Muslim, Biblical and para-biblical traditions; Hadith and prophetic biography; Islamic law and legal theory; and Islam in the Americas.

Selected Publications

2013. Book Chapter: 鈥淚slam: Submission to God鈥 in Leslie Stevenson, David L. Haberman, and Peter Matthews Wright, Twelve Theories of Human Nature, 6th edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 137-153 (peer-reviewed).

2011. Book Chapter: 鈥淭he Qur鈥檃nic David鈥 in Constructs of Prophecy in the Former and Latter Prophets and in Other Texts (Ancient Near Eastern Monographs/Monografias sobre el Antiguo Cercano Oriente), edited by Lester L. Grabbe and Martii Nissinen, Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature Press, pp. 187-196 (peer-reviewed).

2011. Review of The Qur鈥檃n and its Biblical Subtext by Gabriel Said Reynolds, New York: Routledge (2010) in Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception Vol. 1, No. 1 (Summer), pp. 219-223.

2010. Peer-Reviewed Journal Article: 鈥淐ritical Approaches to the 鈥楩arewell Khutba鈥 in Ibn Ishaq鈥檚 Life of the Prophet鈥 in Comparative Islamic Studies 6.1-2, pp. 215-248.

2010. Peer-Reviewed Journal Article: 鈥淎fter Smith: Romancing the Text When 鈥楳aps Are All We Possess鈥欌 in Religion and Literature 42.3 (Notre Dame: Autumn), pp. 93-122.

2010.聽Review Essay: 鈥淔rom Politics to Metapolitics: Norman O. Brown鈥檚 The Challenge of Islam鈥 in Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media & Culture 32.3 (Wayne State University Press: Fall), pp. 338-347.

2010. Encyclopedia Article: 鈥淨ur鈥檃n,鈥 The Encyclopedia of Muslim-American History, New York: Facts on File, May (peer-reviewed).

2007. 鈥淎uf dem Spiel steht nichts geringeres als die Freiheit鈥 (鈥淎t Risk Is Nothing Less Than Freedom鈥), published by the German on-line journal Sicherheit-Heute (Security Today), (Reflections on remarks made by Professor Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd in the same publication), April.