Robin Kirk
Professor of the Practice of Cultural Anthropology

Kirk is the Faculty Co-Chair of the Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute and is a founding member of the Pauli Murray Project, an initiative of the center that seeks to use the legacy of this Durham daughter to examine the region’s past of slavery, segregation and continuing economic inequality. An author and human rights advocate, Kirk is a Professor of the Practice in the Department of Cultural Anthropology and directs the Human Rights Certificate. Her book, Righting Wrongs: 20 Human Rights Heroes from around the World, will be published in 2022. Kirk is the author of "The Bond" fantasy trilogy, with a re-release of all three books scheduled for 2022. She's written three non-fiction books for adults, including More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs and America’s War in Colombia (Public Affairs) and The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (University of Massachusetts Press). She is a co-editor of The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University) and co-edits Duke University Press’s “World Readers” series. An essayist and award-winning poet, she has published widely on issues as diverse as the Andes, torture, the politics of memory, family life, and pop culture. Her essay on Belfast, “City of Walls,” is included in the Best American Travel Writing anthology of 2012 (Mariner Books). Kirk authored, co-authored and edited over twelve reports for Human Rights Watch, all available online. In the 1980s, Kirk reported for U.S. media from Peru, where she covered the war between the government and the Shining Path. She continues to write for US media, and has been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Sojourners, The American Scholar, the Raleigh News and Observer, the Boston Globe, the Durham Herald Sun and other media.

Degrees & Credentials

  • M.F.A., Vermont College 2014

  • B.A., University of Chicago 1982

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Current Appointments & Affiliations

Contact Information

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