Adam R. Rosenblatt, Professor of the Practice

Adam Rosenblatt is Professor of the Practice in International Comparative Studies and Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. An ethnographer interested in human rights, the ethics of care, and our ongoing ties to the dead, Rosenblatt is the author of Digging for the Disappeared: Forensic Science after Atrocity (Stanford University Press, 2015), a winner of Choice's 2016 Outstanding Academic Title award, and Cemetery Citizens: Reclaiming the Past and Working for Justice in American Burial Grounds (2024). Cemetery Citizens is an ethnography of grassroots groups working to preserve and honor places of the marginalized dead. The book largely focuses on ongoing reclamation efforts in African American burial grounds, including Durham's own Geer Cemetery. It uses sketches and poetic inquiry to “draw out” the voices and active, embodied presence of descendants, grassroots activists and memory-workers.

Adam is a cartoonist and graduate of the year-long certificate program at the Sequential Artists Workshop.  His comics work includes serving as a graphic ethnographer for a team of anthropologists working in northern Uganda, the serialized comic A Little Golden Promise, and various contributions to anthologies and advocacy zines. He is also working on a project about using comics as a teaching method in liberal arts courses. You can see some Adam's comics, collages, and drawings on Instagram at @researchcartoonist.

In Durham, Adam works with the Friends of Geer Cemetery, teaches community-engaged courses, and is the co-founder of the Durham Black Burial Grounds Collaboratory, an academic-community-cemetery partnership funded by the Duke Endowment.

Adam has published additional research about the politics of autism, civic engagement and teaching, and human rights activism in Disability Studies Quarterly, Human Rights Quarterly, The Applied Anthropologist, Hybrid Pedagogy and other journals. He has been consulted by the United Nations and other policy-makers on questions of missing persons and mass graves, and serves on the Faculty Advisory Board of the Duke Human Rights Center.

Contact Info:

Office Location:	Ics Program, 1304 Campus Drive, Durham, NC 27708-0405
Email Address:
Web Pages:	https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WKkBgHBAdw1qxSHv-vJxnRq6TQ_hIe--/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104908938231687953771&rtpof=true&sd=true https://duke.academia.edu/AdamRosenblatt

Teaching (Fall 2025):

• ICS 195.01, CRITICAL APPR GLOBAL ISSUES Synopsis

  East Duke 204B, MWF 01:40 PM-02:40 PM

  (also cross-listed as CULANTH 195.01, GSF 195.01, HISTORY 103.01, POLSCI 110.01, SOCIOL 195.01)

Office Hours:

East Duke Building 210-B or Zoom). Book an appointment using this link: https://calendly.com/adam-rosenblatt/30min

Education:

Ph.D.	Stanford University	2011
B.A.	Yale University	2000

Keywords:

African American cemeteries • Cemeteries • Death • Disability studies • Graphic Novels • Human Rights • Memorialization • Public spaces

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Kim, JJ; Rosenblatt, A, Whose humanitarianism, whose forensic anthropology?, in Anthropology of Violent Death Theoretical Foundations for Forensic Humanitarian Action (January, 2023), pp. 153-176, ISBN 9781119806363 [doi]  [abs]
2. Rosenblatt, A, Cemetery Citizens: Reclaiming Buried Pasts to Revise the Present (forthcoming) (2023), Stanford University Press
3. Rosenblatt, A, The Danger of a single story about forensic humanitarianism., Journal of forensic and legal medicine, vol. 61 (February, 2019), pp. 75-77 [doi]  [abs]
4. Rosenblatt, A, Autism, Advocacy Organizations, and Past Injustice, Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 38 no. 4 (December, 2018), The Ohio State University Libraries [doi]  [abs]
5. Wagner, SE; Rosenblatt, A, Known Unknowns: Forensic Science, the Nation-State, and the Iconic Dead, in Studies in Forensic Biohistory Anthropological Perspectives (January, 2017), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781316943021  [abs]