Welling Hall, Ph.D.

About me

I started out as a Sovietologist interested in nuclear arms control, working for the American Friends Service Committee on the Nuclear Freeze Campaign. With the collapse of the Cold War, I transitioned into UN Studies (and this is how ECMUN began in 1994). I spent several sabbaticals in Washington, DC. I had a Congressional Fellowship working as a foreign policy advisor for Keith Ellison; I had a Franklin Fellowship serving as a consultant to the Department of State. During my final sabbatical I worked on some advocacy projects with the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Education

• Ph.D., The Ohio State University
• B.A., Oberlin College

Why did you teach at Earlham?

Earlham students were and are passionately committed to peace and social responsibility. I love that I as a political scientist I got to collaborate with a metal smith on a Swords into Plowshares art project. I love that I can bring international colleagues to campus for teaching and collaboration. I love the diversity of the student body. I love that at Earlham the Model UN was about real issues and outreach to the regional community. I love the way students are encouraged to find ways to put ideas into action.

Professional memberships

American Political Science Association
International Studies Association
Academic Council on the United Nations System
American Society of International Law

Research projects

Post-Earlham I have become deeply interested in political theology and I am currently pursuing a Masters of Divinity degree.

My most recent student collaborations were devoted to the Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace. At Earlham I led multiple May Terms to New York for students to observe the United Nations in action.

Scholarly interest

Civic engagement, good governance, political theology, and making art as an aesthetic counter to atrocity and horror.

Published works

“Transforming Weapons into Art: The Theopoetics of Beating Swords into Plowshares” in Friends Journal. September 2022. 

A Guide to Congress for College Student Advocates. Friends Committee on National Legislation. April 2018.

“Art Transforming Violence,” a pop-up art show of my sculpture about gun violence in conjunction with the Friends Committee on National Legislation and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. November 2018.

“How to Beat a Sword into a Plowshare c. 2013” Public Lecture hosted by Diplomacy Center, United States State Department. April 2016.

“International Law and the Responsibility to Protect” in The International Studies Encyclopedia (1st ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. 2010.

Associate Editor (with Nigel Young et al.), Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace: Global Conflict, Nonviolence & Transformation. Oxford University Press. 2010. Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Co-editor with Tim McElwee, Joseph Liechty, and Julie Garber. Peace, Justice and Security Studies Curriculum Guide. Lynne Rienner Press. 2009.

Instructor’s Manual for Dynamics of International Relations. 2d Edition (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc: 2004). First edition rated as the best on the market by The Teacher in PS XXXVI, No. 1 2003.

“Teaching with Theory Plays: The Example of the Ozone Layer in Renewing a Common World” in Encountering Global Environmental Politics, ed. By Michael Maniates (Rowman and Littlefield: 2003).

“Power and Powerlessness in the Humanitarian Aid Movement: Women, Russia, and the Spirit of Totalitarianism” in Feminist Approaches to Social Movements, Community, and Power: Conscious Acts and the Politics of Social Change, ed. by Mary Ann Tetreault and Robin Teske (University of South Carolina Press: 2000).

Women Politics and Environmental Action. Friends and Partners. 1994.

Information Technology and Global Learning for Sustainable Development: Promise and Problems. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 19(1), 99–132, 1994. 

“Trud dushi i grazhdanskoe vzroslenie [Inspiration and Adult Citizenship]” in POLIS (Institute of Comparative Politology, Moscow) No. 3, 1992.

“Soviet Perceptions of Global Ecological Problems: An Analysis of Three Patterns” in Political Psychology Vol. 11 No. 4, 1990.

“Peace Studies as if Soviet Studies Mattered” in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science July 1989.