SUSAN HIRSCH

INSTITUTE FOR CONFLICT ANALYSIS AND RESOLUTION
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
MSN 4D3

ARLINGTON, VA 22201
Phone: (703) 993-9407 Fax:
(703)-993-1302
E-mail:
shirsch4@gmu.edu

Susan Hirsch Bio

New Book: In the Moment of Greatest Calamity


EDUCATION

Ph.D. Duke University, 1990 (Anthropology)
Thesis: Gender and Disputing: Insurgent Voices in Coastal Kenyan Muslim Courts

B.A. Yale College, 1982 (Anthropology)
magna cum laude with distinction in Anthropology
Senior Essay: Language Minorities in the American Courtroom


ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

George Mason University, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and Department of Sociology/Anthropology. Associate Professor. Director of the Undergraduate Program in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. 2004 - present

Wesleyan University, Department of Anthropology, Chair [2000-02],
Associate Professor (1997-2004). Affiliated in the Women's Studies Program.

Fulbright Fellow, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Department of Sociology and Anthropology. 1997-98

Northwestern University, Women's Studies Program, Visiting Instructor. 1990

Duke University, Ernestine Friedl Instructor in Anthropology. 1986-87

Summer American Embassy, Niamey (Niger), Intern to the Economic Officer. 1984


SPECIALIZATION
& LANGUAGES

Legal anthropology, sociolegal studies, discourse analysis, gender, East Africa, Islam.

English, Kiswahili, and French.


MAJOR
RESEARCH PROJECTS

2002-03 Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Rockefeller Fellow in Islam and Globalization.

2002-03 National Humanities Center, Hurford Family Fellow.

2002-03 Duke University, Department of Anthropology, Visiting Faculty.

1994-98 University of Dar es Salaam, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Research Affiliate.

1987-88 Northwestern University Program of African Studies, Visiting Scholar.

1985-86 University of Nairobi (Kenya) Department of Linguistics and African Languages, Research Associate.


PUBLICATIONS

Books

In the Moment of Greatest Calamity: Terrorism, Grief, and a Victim’s Quest for Justice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court. Series on Language and Legal Discourse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Contested States: Law, Hegemony, and Resistance. Mindie Lazarus-Black and Susan F. Hirsch (ed.). In After the Law: A Series on Law in Society, John Brigham and Christine Harrington, (ed.). New York: Routledge Press, 1994.

Edited Publications

PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review. Vol. 22, N. 2 (November 1999), Vol. 23, N. 1 and 2 (May and November 2000); Vol. 24 N. 1 and 2 (May and November 2001); Vol. 25 N. 1 and 2 (May and November 2002).

Articles and Book Chapters

“Islamic Law and Society Post-911.” Annual Review of Law and Society 2006. 2:165-82.

"Problems of Cross-cultural Comparison: Analyzing Linguistic Strategies in Tanzanian Domestic Violence Workshops." Law and Social Inquiry. Symposium on Violence Between Intimates, Globalization and the State. Fall 2003.

"Afterward." Power Trip: U.S. Unilateralism and Global Strategy after September 11th. John Feffer, ed. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003.

"Feminist Participatory Research on Legal Consciousness." Practicing Ethnography in Law: New Dialogues, Enduring Methods. J. Starr and M. Goodale (eds.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

"Victims for the Prosecution: A Survivor of the Embassy Bombings on the Limits of Victim Impact Testimony." Boston Review: A Political and Literary Forum 27.5: 21-25, October/November 2002.

"The Power of Participation: Language and Gender in Tanzanian Law Reform Campaigns." Symposium on Women, Language, and Law in Africa. Africa Today 49.2, Summer 2002.

"Making Culture Visible: Comments on Elizabeth Mertz's Teaching Lawyers the Language of Law: Legal and Anthropological Translations." The John Marshall Law Review. (Centennial Issue titled The Languages of Race, Feminism, Anthropology, and Philosophy: Translating for the Legal Skills Classroom) v. 34.1:119-129, 2001.

"Naming Resistance: Ethnographers, Dissidents, and States." (with Susan Bibler Coutin) Anthropological Quarterly 71.1:1-17, 1998.

"Swahili Society." Encyclopedia of Cultures and Everyday Life. Pepper Pike, Ohio: Eastword Publications. 1996.

"Interpreting Media Representations of 'A Night of Madness'. Law and Culture in the Construction of Rape Identities." Law and Social Inquiry 19.4. Special symposium on Women, Law, and Violence, Lisa Frohman and Elizabeth Mertz (issue eds.), Fall, 1994.

"Introduction to 'Images of Violence'." In: The Public Nature of Private Violence. Martha Fineman and Roxanne Mykitiuk (eds.). New York: Routledge Press, 1994.

"Performance and Paradox: Exploring Law's Role in Hegemony and Resistance." Co-authored with Mindie Lazarus-Black. Introduction to Contested States: Law, Hegemony and Resistance. M. Lazarus-Black and S. Hirsch (ed.). New York: Routledge Press, 1994.

"Kadhi's Courts as Complex Sites of Resistance: The State, Islam, and Gender in Post-Colonial Kenya." In Contested States: Law, Hegemony and Resistance. S. Hirsch and M. Lazarus-Black (ed.). New York: Routledge Press, 1994.

"Language, Gender and Authority in Coastal Kenyan Muslim Courts." The Working Papers in Language, Gender and Sexism 3/4, 1992.

"Sprache, Geschlecht und linguistische Ideologien in moslemishen Gerichtsverhandlungen in Kenia." (Language, gender and linguistic ideology in Kenyan Muslim Courts.) In: Geschlecht und Kultur im Gesprach. S. Gunthner and H. Kotthoff (ed.). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1992. (Substantially similar to English version directly above.)

"Defining Incest: A synchronic and diachronic approach to substantive law." The Southern Anthropologist 12.1:10-20, 1984.

Review Articles

"Researching Language and Power: Talking Empowerment?" Review essay of Researching Language: Issues of Power and Method (D. Cameron, et.al.); Talking Power: The Politics of Language (R. Lakoff); and Power in Family Discourse (R. Watts). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 4(2):64-73, 1994.

"Subjects in Spite of Themselves: Legal Consciousness Among Working-Class New Englanders." Review essay of Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness Among Working-Class Americans. (S. Merry). Law and Social Inquiry 17(3):839-857, 1992.

Book Reviews

Review of Just Words: Law, Language, and Power. (John Conley and William M. O'Barr). American Anthropologist 102.1, March 1999.

Review of Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers' Tongues (J. Penelope) and The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader (D. Cameron, ed.). Language in Society. 20.4, 1991.

Review of Custom and conflict on a Bahamian Out-island. New West Indian Guide. 1989.


GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS

Major Competitions

National Humanities Center Research Fellowship, Research Triangle Park, NC, 2002-03.

Rockefeller Fellowship, Islam and Globalization, Kluge Center, Library of Congress, 2002-03.

Fulbright Lectureship, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 1997-1998.

Research Grant, National Science Foundation, Law and Social Science Division, Global Perspectives on Sociolegal Studies Program, "An Ethnographic Analysis of the Impact of Globally Significant Ideologies on Legal Consciousness and Gender Relations," 1992-94.

Doctoral Fellowship, American Bar Foundation, 1988-90.

Doctoral Fellowship, Northwestern University Law and Social Science Program, 1987-88.

Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, 1987-88.

Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (Advanced Intensive Swahili), Michigan State University, Summer 1985.

University competitions

Faculty grant, Wesleyan University, for participation in faculty seminar on Intersectionality and Pedagogy, 2001-02.

Project grant, Wesleyan University, for research on the Embassy Bombings trial, 2001.

Seed Project grant, Wesleyan University, for development of "Being and Becoming Human" (ANTH 101), 1999.

Faculty Fellowship, Wesleyan University Center for the Humanities, Fall 1998.

Pedagogical grant, Wesleyan University, Development of videos and collection of materials from Tanzania for "Challenges to African Societies in the Age of Globalization."1997-98.

Project grant, Wesleyan University, "Legal Consciousness at the 1996 Gender Studies Conference in Tanzania," 1996.

Course development grant, Wesleyan University, Leonard Halpert Freedom of Expression Grant, for development of "Discourse and Legal Processes," 1995.

Faculty Fellowship, Wesleyan University, Center for the Humanities, 1993.

Project development grant, Wesleyan University, "An Ethnographic Analysis of the Impact of Globally Significant Ideologies on Legal Consciousness and Gender Relations," 1992.

Course development grant, Wesleyan University, Ford Foundation--Multicultural Perspectives in the Curriculum, with Gage Averill and Steven Gregory, 1991.

Dissertation Travel Award, Duke University Graduate School, 1987.

Dissertation Research Support, Shell-Duke University International Studies Center, 1984.

Research Grant, Duke University-University of North Carolina Women's Studies Research Center, Summer 1983.


TEACHING

Advanced seminars:
Law and Jurisprudence (CONF 733)
Integration—Conflict Analysis and Resolution (CONF 490)
Law and Conflict in Society (ANTH 300)
Discourse and Legal Processes (ANTH 375)
Global Perspectives in Anthropology (ANTH 389/WMST 389)
The Construction of Cultural Identity (ANTH 390)
Feminisms in Global Perspective (ANTH 398/WMST 398)
Challenges to African Societies in the Age of Globalization (ANTH 386)
Rethinking Gender and Sexuality: Examples from African Ethnography (ANTH 390)
African Women: Voices and Texts (ANTH 390)
Senior Research Seminar in Women’s Studies (WMST 400)

Lecture/Discussion courses:
Contemporary Anthropological Theory (ANTH 201)
Anthropological Approaches to Gender (ANTH 218/WMST 218)
Language and Culture in Society (ANTH 280)

Introductory courses: 
Conflict and Our World: Intro. to Conflict Analysis and Resolution (CONF 101)
Being and Becoming Human (ANTH 101)
The Construction and Expression of Cultural Identity (ANTH 102)
African Lives Narrated (ANTH 102)


RESEARCH
CONSULTANCY

Humanitarian Dialogues. Advisory Board member for Conflict Mediators and Justice project.


SERVICE TO
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

National Science Foundation [Law and Social Sciences Program]

  • Review Panel member [two years]
  • Chair, Committee of Visitors, April 2-4, 2000;
  • Member, Committee of Visitors, to be held March 2004.
  • Proposal reviewer.

Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (of the American Anthropological Association)

  • Editor, PoLAR, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 1999-2002.
  • Editorial Board member, PoLAR, 1997-present.
  • Nominations Committee, 2000.
  • Member, Executive Board, 1995-97, 1999-2002.
  • Coordinator, APLA Annual Student Paper Prize, 1995-96.
  • Member, Nominations Committee for the Executive Board, 1995-96.

American Anthropological Association

  • Editorial Board Member, American Ethnologist, 2002-present.

Law and Society Association

  • Member, Program Planning Committee for the Annual Meeting, Budapest, July 2001.
  • Chair, Committee on International Participation-Africa, 1994-96.
  • Member, Nominations Committee for Trustees, 1995.
  • Member, Program Planning Committee for the Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, May 1993.
  • Trustee, Law and Society Association, Class of 1992-94.
  • Member, Program Planning Committee for the American Bar Association/Law and Society
  • Association Student Workshop, Madison, June 1989 and Berkeley, June 1990.

Referee of manuscripts and grants for American Ethnologist, Anthropological Quarterly, Current Anthropology, Law and Social Inquiry, Law and Society Review, Africa Today, Oxford University Press, PoLAR, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, National Science Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, National Humanities Center