Wendell Bell

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Yale University
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Professor Emeritus of Sociology
(Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1952) is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and a Fellow of the Koerner Center, Yale University. He joined the Yale faculty in 1963, served as Chair of the Department of Sociology, helped to found the Yale Program (now Department) of African American Studies, directed the Yale Comparative Sociology Training Program, which required students to do research abroad, and was a Senior Research Scientist in the Yale Center for Comparative Research (2000-05). Before that, he was on the faculties of Stanford University where he directed the Stanford Survey Research Facility (1952-54), Northwestern University (1954-57), and UCLA, where he headed the West Indies Study Program (1957-63). He was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA (1963-64). During World War II, he was a naval aviator and did a tour of duty in the Philippines. His fields of interest are futures studies and social change, human values and global ethics, social stratification, ethnicity and nationalism (Caribbean, Western Europe, and comparatively worldwide). His early research was on the social areas of American cities, focusing on social class, race, and family life. Later, he studied elites, nationalism, and social change in the new states of the Caribbean and served as President of the Caribbean Studies Association in 1979-80. He has been a futurist for four decades and was a gubernatorial appointee to the Commission on Connecticut’s Future. He continues to work as a futurist-sociologist consultant, for example in 1999 participating in the work of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. He is the author or co-author of nine books and more than 200 articles, chapters, and book reviews. In 2005 the World Futures Studies Federation awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his many contributions to the field of futures studies and in 2008 the Association of Professional Futurists selected his two-volume Foundations of Futures Studies (1997) as being among the ten most important futures books of all time.
Selected Publications
Books
- Bell, Wendell (2004, Paperback edition) Foundations of Futures Studies II: Values, Objectivity and the Good Society. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997
- Bell, Wendell (2003, Paperback edition) Foundations of Futures Studies I: History, Purposes, Knowledge. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997
Chapters
- “Public sociology and the future: the possible, the probable, and the preferable,” in Vincent Jeffries (ed.), Handbook of Public Sociology. Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.
- “Futuros para la democracia.” Pp 102-06 in Diálogo de Alto Nivel, Los Futuros del Mundo, Alternativas para México. World Future Society Capítulo Mexicano, A.C., 2004.
- “Stuff happens! Changes in America since 9/11.” Pp. 39-49 in Arthur B. Shostak (ed.), “Trade Towers/War Clouds” Vol. 2 of Defeating Terrorism/Developing Dreams: Beyond 9/11 and the Iraq War. Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004.
- “New futures and the eternal struggle between good and evil.” Pp. 213-32 in Howard F. Didsbury, Jr. (ed.), 21st Century Opportunities and Challenges: An Age of Destruction or an Age of Transformation. Bethesda, MD: World Future Society, 2003.
- “Making people responsible: the possible, the probable, and the preferable. [pdf],” Pp. 33-52 in James A. Dator (ed.), Advancing Futures: Futures Studies in Higher Education. Westport, CT: Praeger Studies on the 21st Century, 2002.
Articles
- “Wendell Bell and Oliver W. Markley: two futurists’ views of the preferable, the possible and the probable. Journal of Futures Studies” 13, No. 3 (2009): 161-178 (by Darrell Kicker).
- “The American invasion of Grenada: a note on false prophecy,” Foresight 10, No. 3 (2008): 27-42.
- “Looking towards the futures studies renaissance: a conversation between Richard A. Slaughter and Wendell Bell,” Journal of Futures Studies, 12 (1) (August 2007).
- “Eleonora Barbieri Masini on the empowerment of women,” Futures, 38 (10) (December 2006): 1179-1189. Available online at ScienceDirect:
- “On becoming and being a futurist: an interview with Wendell Bell [pdf],” Journal of Futures Studies 10 (2) (November 2005): 113-24 (by Levelhead 753 [aka Wendell Bell]).
- “Creativity, skepticism, and visioning the future,” Futures 37 (5) (June 2005): 429-32. Available online at ScienceDirect: 9: 27-54.
- “Goals of futures studies (RC07),” Futures Research, Newsletter of the International Sociological Association, Research Committee 07, 17 (November 2003): 3-5.
- “How has American life changed since September 11?” Journal of Futures Studies 8 (1) (August 2003): 73-80.
- “The clash of civilizations and universal human values,” Journal of Futures Studies 6 (3) (February 2002): 1-20.
- “A community of futurists and the state of the futures field,” Futures 34 (3-4) (April/May 2002): 235-47. www.sciencedirect.com
- “Advancing futures studies: a reply to Michael Marien,” Futures 34 (5) (June 2002): 435- 47.www.sciencedirect.com