Robin Kirk, Professor of the Practice of Cultural Anthropology

Please note: Robin has left the "Center for Latin American Caribbean Studies" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

The core of my work is to understand and communicate new ideas of human rights, including young people in that conversation. In addition to founding Duke's Human Rights Certificate program for undergraduates, I explore human rights themes in my writing for adults and children. One of my goals for teaching is to ensure that students see human rights in what Eleanor Roosevelt once described as the "small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world ... Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere." One of my proudest achievements is to have worked in community to help launch the Pauli Murray Center, which seeks to use the legacy of this Durham daughter to examine the region’s past of slavery, segregation, and continuing economic inequality. My book, Righting Wrongs: 20 Human Rights Heroes from around the World, introduces young readers to some of the people who helped create modern human rights. I also write fantasy and science fiction as a way of exploring human rights themes in story.  "The Bond" fantasy trilogy imagines a female-led society determined to win peace though at the cost of the genocide of men. 

Contact Info:   

Office Location:	114 S. Buchanan Blvd., Smith Warehouse B183, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone:	(919) 641-0635
Email Address:
Web Pages:	http://www.robinkirk.com http://humanrights.fhi.duke.edu

Teaching (Spring 2024):

• HOUSECS 59.29, HOUSE COURSE (SP TOP) Synopsis

  Kilgo Quad 002CM, Tu 05:15 PM-06:45 PM

• CULANTH 104.01, INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN RIGHTS Synopsis

  Smith Wrhs B271, MW 08:30 AM-09:45 AM

  (also cross-listed as HISTORY 116.01, ICS 113.01, PUBPOL 162.01, RIGHTS 104.01)

• CULANTH 290S.04, CURRENT ISSUES (TOPICS) Synopsis

  Smith Wrhs C104, W 12:00 PM-02:30 PM

  (also cross-listed as AAAS 290S.04, EDUC 290S.06, HISTORY 390S.04, RIGHTS 290S.04)

• CULANTH 498S.01, SENIOR DISTINCTION SEMINAR Synopsis

  Smith Wrhs C104, M 03:20 PM-05:50 PM

Office Hours:

Mondays and Wednesdays from 1-4 pm

Education:

M.F.A.	Vermont College	2014
B.A.	The University of Chicago	1982

Specialties:

South America
Human Rights
Europe
Cultural Memory
Politics of Memory
Transnational Studies

Research Interests:

Kirk is the author of three books, including More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs and America’s War in Colombia (PublicAffairs) and The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (University of Massachusetts Press). She is the coeditor of The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University) and helps edit Duke University Press’s World Readers series. Her essay on Colombia and human rights appears in Human Rights and Conflict Resolution in Context: Colombia, Sierra Leone, and Northern Ireland (Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution, May 2009), edited by Eileen F. Babbitt and Ellen Lutz. An award-winning poet, Kirk also won the 2005 Glamour magazine non-fiction contest with her essay on the death penalty, available in the November 2005 issue. In the Fall of 2006, she was a Fulbright lecturer at the Human Rights Center at Istanbul Bilgi University in Turkey. In 2005-2006, she was a consultant to the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the first-ever truth commission within the United States. Kirk authored, co-authored and edited over twelve reports for Human Rights Watch, all available on-line. In the 1980s, Kirk reported for U.S. media from Peru, where she covered the war between the government and the Shining Path. During that time, she also prepared reports for the U.S. Committee on Refugees, including the first report ever on the plight of Peru’s internally displaced people. Kirk is a former Radcliffe Bunting Fellow and is a past winner of the Media Alliance Meritorious Achievement Award for Freelance Writing. Kirk directs DukeEngage’s Duke in Belfast program. She is the associate director of Duke’s International Comparative Studies program.

Keywords:

Conflict management • Creative writing • Creative writing--Fiction • Creative writing--Juvenile literature • Denial of justice • Fantasy • Fantasy gamers • Human Rights • Human rights advocacy • Human rights and globalization • Human rights movements • Human rights--America • Human rights--History--20th century • Human rights--Northern Ireland • Journalism • Muser Mentor • Online journalism • Science fiction • Science fiction films • Truth commissions • Young adult literature

Curriculum Vitae  Bio

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Kirk, R, The Mother's Wheel Book Three of the Bond Trilogy (September, 2022), pp. 300 pages, ISBN 9798985584141  [abs]
2. Kirk, R, The Hive Queen Book Two of the Bond Trilogy (June, 2022), pp. 326 pages, ISBN 9798985584127  [abs]
3. Kirk, R, Righting Wrongs 20 Human Rights Heroes Around the World (June, 2022), pp. 240 pages, Chicago Review Press, ISBN 9781641605625  [abs]
4. Kirk, R, Reflections on a silent soldier, American Scholar, vol. 88 no. 4 (September, 2019), pp. 30-40
5. Kirk, R, When the shooting stops: How transitional justice turns knowledge into acknowledgment, World Policy Journal, vol. 33 no. 3 (September, 2016), pp. 39-44, Duke University Press [doi]  [abs]