Anthony Bing (at left in cap at Friends International Center in Ramallah) is Emeritus Professor of English and Chair of Peace and Global Studies Emeritus from Earlham College. He retired after thirty one years at Earlham in 2001. While at Earlham he also served as the national Executive Director of the Peace Studies Association (PSA), 1994-2001.

Educated at Haverford College, Oxford University and the University of Michigan, Bing was a teacher of Shakespeare, Modern French Novel, Old and Middle English and Literature of the Middle East. In the Peace Studies field he offered courses in the theory and practice of nonviolence, introduction to peace study, war and literature, and the contemporary conflict in the Middle East.

He spent a good portion of his career developing programs in international education, especially in the Middle East, where he taught at the American University of Beirut (1967-69) and was chairman of he Great Lakes Colleges Association’s Middle East Advisory Committee (1970-76). In 1982 Prof. Bing began the Great Lakes Jerusalem Program, a semester of study of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. This program involved living with Israeli and Palestinian families and having courses taught by Israeli and Palestinian professors.

Based on that model, Bing set up a Northern Ireland Program in 1991, also with a peace focus, that studied the origins and development of the catholic/protestant conflict in Northern Ireland. For his work in Northern Ireland he was given an award by the British government in 1993. In 1992 he was selected by the Peace Studies Association (PSA) as its Peace Educator of the year.

Bing has written widely on the conflict between Palestine and Israel, most notably a book about Joseph Abileah, Israel’s first conscientious objector. He also co-authored a 2004 work, When the Rain Returns, a study of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

He has served on the Board of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), has clerked its National Peace Education Committee and its Middle East Peacebuilding Program Advisory committee. Currently he is on the AFSC’s Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

In May of 2007 he co-led an AFSC delegation to Israel/Palestine that commemorated the 40th anniversary of Israel’s Occupation of Palestine. It was his thirtieth visit to that troubled land.

In retirement he has been clerk of the Swannanoa Valley Friends Meeting (SVFM) in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and recently has offered courses at Warren Wilson College and at Montreat College Center for Adult Lifelong Learning (McCALL). He currently clerks the Western Carolinians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East.

Prof. Bing will lead a tour of Palestine and Israel, June 13-26, 2011, in association with Neighbors East and West.

Click here for an interactive itinerary.

Click here for announcement, registration form & poster.