Susan F. Hirsch

Susan F. Hirsch, a cultural anthropologist, is the Vernon M. and Minnie I. Lynch Chair in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University (GMU) in Virginia (USA) and also professor of Conflict Resolution and Anthropology. Her scholarship focuses on law in relation to conflict; international and transitional justice; legal integration and religious minorities; environmental justice; feminist approaches to law and conflict, experiential learning, and legal responses to terrorism.

Her current book project advances an approach to rule of law that is tailored to the conflict field. Recent field research in Malta and Kenya, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), resulted in publications on rule of law and the legal integration of religious minorities. Hirsch’s books include Conflict Zone, Comfort Zone: Ethics, Pedagogy, and Effecting Change in Field-Based Courses (edited with A. Paczynska; Ohio UP, 2019), Mountaintop Mining in Appalachia: Understanding Stakeholders and Change in Environmental Conflict (Ohio UP, 2014), received In the Moment of Greatest Calamity: Terrorism, Grief, and a Victim’s Question for Justice (Princeton, 2006), which won the Law and Society Association’s Jacob Book Prize, Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court (Chicago, 1998), and Contested States: Law, Hegemony, and Resistance (co-edited with M. Lazarus-Black; Routledge, 1994). She co-edits (with A. Paczynska) Conflict, Justice, and Social Change, a book series at Ohio University Press.

A two-time Fulbright Lecturer (Tanzania and Malta), Hirsch has taught in the Carter School’s International Masters program, a joint initiative with the University of Malta (UM) and serves on the board of UM’s Centre for the Study and Practice of Conflict. She is engaged in multiple projects related to migration and integration in Malta. As co-PI (with A. Paczynska) of a large Department of Education-funded project, Hirsch developed classroom-based experiential learning activities and field-based courses to improve conflict students’ capacity to apply theory to practice. A three-time elected Trustee of the Law and Society Association, she was the president of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association. She was the editor of Political and Legal Anthropology Review and an editorial board of Law and Society Review. The leadership positions held by Hirsch at the Carter School include Chair of the Faculty Board, Executive Committee member, and Founding Director of the Undergraduate Program.

Honors and Awards

• Hall of Fame Award - Ringgold Rams Club, Ringgold Rams Football Community Club
• NSF Grant Award- "Legal Integration and Rule of Law: A Comparative Analysis", National Science Foundation

In the News

• Lecture by Susan Hirsch at San Anton Palace
  Published on January 12, 2016
  Full article
• Faculty Spotlight on Innovation: Susan Hirsch & Agnieszka Paczynska
  Published on February 20, 2014
• Ghailani Trial and Sentence Affirms US Federal Court System
  Published on January 24, 2011
  Full article
• A More Personal View of a Detainee’s Trial
  Published on November 6, 2010
  Full article

Presentations and Performances

• Dissertation Defense -- The Impact of Gender Mainstreaming on Men: The Case of Liberia
  Apr 11 2012 | Arlington Truland Building
• Law Day Conference on Civil Discourse 2010
  Apr 30 2010 | Virgini
• Dissertation Proposal Defense - Lisa McLean
  Dec 6 2016 | Metropolitan Building

Degrees

• PhD, Anthropology, Duke University
• BA, Anthropology, Yale College