Orin Starn

Orin Starn is an anthropologist and writer. He has worked for many years in Peru among other places, and is lead editor of the popular "The Peru Reader" as well authoring his own book "Nightwatch" about Andean village organizing. Starn, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, also wrote the award-winning "Ishi’s Brain" about the life and legend of the last survivor of California’s Yahi tribe. His interest in sports and society led to a book called "The Passion of Tiger Woods," which examines the superstar golfer’s place in American culture. He also offers an online course called "Sports and Society" taken by many thousands of students worldwide. Starn’s most recent book, co-authored with historian Miguel La Serna, is "The Shining Path: Love, Madness and Revolution in the Andes" about the story of a deadly guerrilla insurgency in Peru. His op-ed pieces have run in the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers, and he has appeared on NPR, ESPN and many other radio and tv programs. Starn is a professor in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, where he has won the university’s highest undergraduate teaching award. He is currently doing research for a book on Amazon.com and its giant place in American life, including working an Amazon warehouse himself.