From John Kirk; Arkansas Historian
Dr. John A. Kirk is a George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity director. He was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, in the United Kingdom, and holds an undergraduate degree in American Studies from the University of Nottingham and a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He taught at the University of Wales, Lampeter (1994-99) and Royal Holloway, University of London (1999-2010) before going to UA Little Rock in the summer of 2010.
Dr. Kirk’s research focuses on the history of the civil rights movement in the United States, the South, and Arkansas, as well as the history of post-New Deal southern politics, society and culture. He has published eight books and written in a wide variety of journals, edited book collections, and popular history magazines including BBC History, History Today and Historically Speaking.
Kirk has won a number of awards for his research including the F. Hampton Roy Award from the Pulaski County Historical Association, and the Walter L. Brown Award, the J. G. Ragsdale Book Award, and the Lucille Westbrook Award from the Arkansas Historical Association. He has held grants from the British Academy, the British Association of American Studies, the Roosevelt Study Center (Middleburg, the Netherlands), the Rockefeller Archive Center (New York) and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (Boston).
Dr. Kirk’s current research interests include the long civil rights movement, African American history, Arkansas history, southern history, and the U.S. since 1945.
