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Dirk Philipsen, Associate Research Professor  

Office Location: Sanford School of Public Policy, 201 Science Dr (Room 114), Durham, NC 27708
Duke Box: 90245
Email Address: dirk.philipsen@duke.edu
Web Page: https://dirkphilipsen.org/

Areas of Expertise

    Education:
    Ph.D., Duke University, 1992
    M.A., Duke University, 1987
    M.A., Free University of Berlin (Germany), 1986

    Teaching (Spring 2025):

    • Pubpol 249.01, Life within capitalism Synopsis
      Rubenstein 151, MW 10:05 AM-11:20 AM

    Office Hours:
    Sanford School of Public Policy
    Sanford Bldg, Room 114

    Mo: 1:30 - 3:00
    Th: 11:00 - 12:00

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    Recent Publications   (More Publications)

    1. Philipsen, D; Krishna, A. "Poverty is not Permanent." Aeon Aeon. (February, 2025).  [abs]
    2. Philipsen, D. "Why? On our Failures of Imagination to Accomplish Dignity for All." Virtues and Vocations Institute for Social Concerns, University of Notre Dame. (November, 2024).  [abs]
    3. Philipsen, D. "A Common Good Approach to Development A Common Good Approach to Development , edited by Mathias Nebel, Oscar Garza-Vazquez, and Clemens Sedmak, Cambridge, UK, Open Books Publishers, 2022, viii + 392 pp., ISBN 978-1-80064-404-5.." Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 24.4 (October, 2023): 594-595. [doi]
    4. Philipsen, D. "What Counts—Why Growth Economics is Failing Us." Journal of Consumer Culture 23.3 (August, 2023): 536-554. [doi]  [abs]
    5. Crichlow, MA; Philipsen, D. "Introduction: Moral and Market disordering in the time of Covid-19." Cultural Dynamics 33.3 (August, 2021): 145-161. [doi]  [abs]

    Highlight:
    Dirk Philipsen is an economic historian and political economist at the Sanford School of Public Policy and the Department of History.  He also serves as Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and director of both the Regenerative Futures Lab and the Build a Better World Focus program at Duke University. His work and teaching is focused on underlying structural requirements for wellbeing of people and planet.  His research includes economic metrics, the history of capitalism, the role of private property, and the promises of a revitalized commons. 

    Raised in Germany and educated in both Germany and the United States, he received a BA in economics (College for Economics, Berlin, 1982), an MA in American Studies (John F. Kennedy Institute, Free University Berlin, 1987), and a Ph.D in American Social and Economic History (Duke University, 1992). He has taught at Duke University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Virginia State University. For ten years, he served as Director of the Institute for the Study of Race Relations at Virginia State University, which he founded in 1997. 


    Dirk Philipsen has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Franklin Humanities Center at Duke, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. He has published on the history of modern capitalism, economic growth, the commons, movements for social and economic justice, as well as race and race relations. His first book, We Were the People, chronicles the collapse of communism in East Germany and was published by Duke University Press. Recently, he served as editor and contributor to a volume on Green Business, published by SAGE. His latest work is published by Princeton University Press under the title The Little Big Number – How GDP Came to Rule the World, And What to Do About It (Spring 2015.)

    Dirk Philipsen