Dr Michael Ward

michael ward
Associate Faculty Member
01865 771299
michael.ward2@theology.ox.ac.uk

Biography

I read English as an undergraduate at Regent’s Park College, Oxford (1987-1990) and Theology at Peterhouse, Cambridge (1999-2001). I earned a doctorate in Divinity from St Andrews, graduating in 2005. I served as Chaplain of Peterhouse (2004-2007), Chaplain of St Peter’s College, Oxford (2009-2012), and was Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford (2012-2021).

Research Interests

Theological imagination, especially in the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien; Christian apologetics; Christian theodicy; doctrinal controversy in the early church. 

Publications

Select Books

  1. After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man (Word on Fire Academic, 2021)
  2. The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis, edited with Robert MacSwain (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
  3. Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (Oxford University Press, 2008)

“With Planet Narnia, Michael Ward has established himself not only as the foremost living Lewis scholar, but also as a brilliant writer . . . This is something of a masterpiece” (N.T. Wright, Times Literary Supplement, 21 October 2009)

  1. Heresies and How to Avoid Them, edited with Ben Quash (SPCK, 2007)

Select Essays

  1. ‘An Experiment in Charity: C.S. Lewis on Love in the Literary Arts’ in The Inklingsand Culture, ed. Monika B. Hilder (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020)
  2. ‘Afterword’ in C.S. Lewis and His Circle: Essays and Memoirs from the Oxford C.S.Lewis Society, ed. Roger White, Judith Wolfe & Brendan Wolfe (Oxford University Press, 2015)
  3. ‘Voyage to Venus’ in C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra: Reshaping the Image of the Cosmos, ed.Judith Wolfe & Brendan Wolfe (Kent State University Press, 2013)
  4. ‘The Tragedy is in the Pity: C.S. Lewis and the Song of the Goat’ in Christian Theology and Tragedy, ed. T. Kevin Taylor & Giles Waller (Ashgate, 2011)
  5. ‘C.S. Lewis on Reason and Imagination’ in Imaginative Apologetics: Theology, Philosophy and the Catholic Tradition, ed. Andrew Davison (SCM Press, 2011)
  6. ‘C.S. Lewis’ in The Heart of Faith: Following Christ in the Church of England, ed. Andrew Atherstone (Cambridge: Lutterworth, 2008)

Select Articles

  1. ‘C.S. Lewis on Christianity and Paganism’, Sacred Architecture(Vol. 33, Spring 2018)
  2. ‘C.S. Lewis lacked faith only in the lasting power of his work’, The Times (23 November 2013)
  3. ‘Science and Religion in the Writings of C.S. Lewis’, Science and Christian Belief (April 2013)
  4. ‘Planet Narnia’, The Times Literary Supplement(25 April 2003) 

Supervising and Examining

I am currently co-supervising with Professor Alister McGrath a doctorate on C.S. Lewis and Eschatology. I co-supervised a doctoral thesis on Dorothy L. Sayers and Apologetics (completed 2017) and another on C.S. Lewis and Tragi-Comedy (completed 2023). I have served both as assessor and examiner for the Faculty of Theology and Religion. I have examined doctoral dissertations completed at the London School of Theology (2022); King’s College, London (2016 and 2015); Manchester University (2013); and Witwatersrand University, South Africa (2013).

Links

www.michaelward.net