Susan Hirsch

Susan F. Hirsch is a Full Professor in the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University. Her training in legal anthropology (BA Yale 1982, PhD Duke 1990) led to research on Islamic law, gender relations, and law reform in Kenya and Tanzania, and her work continues to focus on law’s role in a variety of conflicts. Among her academic publications are Contested States: Law, Hegemony, and Resistance (co-edited with Mindie Lazarus-Black; Routledge, 1994), Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court (Chicago, 1998), and numerous articles and chapters on law reform and conflict, reflexive and participatory research, the American death penalty, and transitional justice. Susan’s prize-winning book, In the Moment of Greatest Calamity: Terrorism, Grief, and a Victim’s Quest for Justice (Princeton, 2007) focuses on her experiences surviving the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania and participating in the subsequent trial of accused bombers. She recently completed a book (co-authored with E. Frank Dukes) titled Mountaintop Mining in Appalachia: Stakeholders and Change in Environmental Conflict. Susan’s current research projects focus on 1) “rule of law” and “global justice” in relation to contemporary conflict resolution initiatives and 2) comparative perspectives on conflict over Islamic family law.