Orin Starn is an anthropologist and writer at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

. He has chaired the Duke Cultural Anthropology department, directed the Duke Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and been the faculty director of the Duke Human Rights Center. Starn teaches courses about Latin America, Native American culture and politics, human rights, and sports and society, among other issues. He received Duke University's Robert B. Cox Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004 and was awarded the Sally Dalton Robinson Distinguished Professorship in 2005. Starn has been researching the experience of Amazon warehouse workers. He worked for two years at Amazon warehouses and is a member of CAUSE, the worker-led union organizing drive at the RDU1 Amazon facility in Garner, North Carolina, and written about what it's like to work at Amazon and the fight for unionization there. Starn is the author, co-author, or editor of 11 books. He has appeared on radio and television programs, and writes for newspapers, including the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' and ''

Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is an American newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals, including staff members and administrators. A subscriptio ...

''.

Ishi, the Andes, and indigenous rights

Starn was involved in the repatriation to California of the remains of

Ishi Ishi ( – March 25, 1916) was the last known member of the Native American Yahi people from the present-day state of California in the United States. The rest of the Yahi (as well as many members of their parent tribe, the Yana) were ki ...

, the last

Yahi The Yana are a group of Native Americans indigenous to Northern California in the central Sierra Nevada, on the western side of the range. Their lands, prior to encroachment by white settlers, bordered the Pit and Feather rivers. They were ...

Indian. Starn's book ''Ishi's Brain'' gives an account of it as well as the story of Ishi's life.">Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last "Wild" Indian
/ref> He has also written extensively about war and society in

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

, including ''The Shining Path'', ''Nightwatch'', and ''The Peru Reader'', as well as several books in Spanish. A book Starn co-edited with Marisol de la Cadena, ''Indigenous Experience Today,'' explores the global rise of

indigenous politics Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

and

activism Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make Social change, changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from ...

Sports, society, and college athletics

Starn has conducted research on sports and society, and appeared on

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

and

sports talk show Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on-a ...

s. His online course "Sports and Society" has drawn thousands of students worldwide. He also maintains a related blog, Golf Politics. Starn wrote op-eds in North Carolina newspapers about the

2006 Duke University lacrosse case The Duke lacrosse rape hoax was a widely reported 2006 criminal case hoax in Durham, North Carolina, United States, in which three members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team were falsely accused of rape. The three students were David Ev ...

Let's talk sports
/ref>) and was quoted in other outlets, including ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' Big Men On Campus
/ref> and ''

The News & Observer ''The News & Observer'' is an American regional daily newspaper that serves the greater Triangle area based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The paper is the largest in circulation in the state (second is the '' Charlotte Observer''). The paper has be ...

''.Coach K speaks up for sports
/ref> During the case, Starn took issue with some of Duke basketball coach

Mike Krzyzewski Michael William Krzyzewski ( , ; born February 13, 1947), nicknamed "Coach K", is an American former college basketball coach. He served as the head coach at Duke University from 1980–81 Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team, 1980 to 2021� ...

's actions. In a June 21, 2006 article in ''

'', Starn was quoted as stating, "Whether Coach Krzyzewski likes it or not, these are serious issues and issues being raised at colleges around the country." He also accused bloggers of inaccurately portraying the involvement of Duke faculty in the

lacrosse Lacrosse is a contact team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game w ...

case in a January 2007 op-ed in the '' Durham Herald-Sun''. Starn has cited the incident in his criticism of Duke's participation in Division I athletics. In another ''News & Observer'' article, Starn was quoted as stating, "It's ridiculous to talk about a balance between athletics and academics...

Athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competitio ...

should be a subset underneath a university's main mission... The idea that athletics should have near-equal weight with academics is just wrong."Sports in crosshairs of campus debates
/ref>

Works

* ''Nursing the Revolution''. (1991) * ''The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics''. Co-editor with Carlos Ivan Degregori and Robin Kirk. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1995. * ''The Revolt against Revolution'' (1995) * "Maoism in the Andes: The Communist Party in Peru -- Shining Path and the Refusal of History". In ''Critical Perspectives on Mao Zedong's Thought''. Edited by Arif Dirlik, Paul Healy, and Nick Knight. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1997, pp. 267–288. * ''Between Resistance and Revolution: Cultural Politics and Social Protest''. Co-editor with Richard G. Fox. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1997. * ''Nightwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes''. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1999. * ''Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last 'Wild' Indian''. New York:

W. W. Norton W. W. Norton & Company is an American publishing company based in New York City. Established in 1923, it has been owned wholly by its employees since the early 1960s. The company is known for its Norton Anthologies (particularly '' The Norton ...

, 2004. 978-0-393-05133-9 * ''Here Come the Anthros''. (2009) * ''The Passion of Tiger Woods: An Anthropologist Reports on Golf, Race, and Celebrity Scandal''. Durham: Duke University Press (2011) * ''The Shining Path: Love, Madness, and Revolution in the Andes''. Co-author with Miguel La Serna. New York:

, 2019. * ''Indigenous Experience Today'' (co-editor)

References

External links

Golf PoliticsIshi's Brain: In Search of America's Last "Wild" Indian
{{DEFAULTSORT:Starn, Orin American anthropologists American non-fiction writers Duke University faculty Historians of Peru Latin Americanists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)