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Robert Korstad

Professor Emeritus of Public Policy
Sanford School of Public Policy
Box 90245, Durham, NC 27708-0245
112 Sanford Inst Bldg, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Presentations & Appearances


North Carolina's Long Civil Rights Movement. · January 13, 2012 Lecture
The Battle Against Poverty: Writing a History of the North Carolina Fund · August 31, 2010 Lecture Chapel Hill, North Carolina
To Right These Wrongs: Teaching the Politics of Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America · May 1, 2010 Lecture Chapel Hill, North Carolina
From the Cotton Fields to the Cotton Club: The African American Diaspora in the Interwar Years · March 20, 2010 Lecture Rockford, Illinois
Like a Family: Southern Textile Towns” · May 15, 2008 Lecture Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virgina

Outreach & Engaged Scholarship


Bass Connections Faculty Team Leader - Documenting Durham's Health History: Understanding the Roots of Health Disparities · 2018 - 2019 Projects & Field Work flag North Carolina

Primary Theme: Global Health

North Carolina’s “City of Medicine” is also a city of great racial and class health disparities. While these inequities have deep historical roots, we know remarkably little about the specific ways by which structural forces, policy decisions and specific group actions have shaped the landscape of health in contemporary Durham. A better understanding of these phenomena requires an historical research and engagement strategy that moves beyond the academy to engage with public health departments, community leaders, multidisciplinary researchers and health professionals. A documentary history of health in Durham, and Duke’s relationship to it, has the potential to expand, and even transform, the vision of healthcare of our community.

DukeEngage Program Leader - Race and justice in the post-apartheid era · May 2017 - July 2017 Service Learning , Cape Town flag South Africa
Bass Connections Faculty Team Member - Education and Rural Entrepreneurship in Appalachia · August 2014 - May 2015 Projects & Field Work flag United States of America
Bass Connections Faculty Team Member - Education, Poverty and Economic Inequality in Rural Appalachia · August 2013 - May 2014 Projects & Field Work flag United States of America
Instructor - DukeEngage in South Africa - Cape Town · 2010 Service Learning , Cape Town and Johannesburg flag South Africa Students assist social agencies seeking to improve life in townships, documenting the history of District Six during the Apartheid era, and promoting health and economic reform. The program's service themes include race/ethnic relations, women's advocacy/women's empowerment and human rights/civil liberties.