Andrew Herscher

Trained as an architect and historian of architecture, Andrew Herscher works on the spatial politics of violence, humanitarian and human rights issues, exile and migration, and contemporary art and architecture. His research, writing, and teaching is informed by his long-term participant-observation in Kosovo’s post-conflict environment, including work with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, and the Kosovo Cultural Heritage Project, a nongovernmental organization he co-founded and co-directed. During his time in Michigan, he has also been involved in a number of collaborative projects in Detroit, including the We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective; Detroit Resists, a coalition of activists, artists, architects and community members working on behalf of an inclusive, equitable, and democratic city; and the Detroit Unreal Estate Agency, an open-access platform for the study of urban crisis using Detroit as a focal point. Among his publications are Violence Taking Place: The Architecture of the Kosovo Conflict, published by Stanford University Press in 2010; The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit, published by the University of Michigan Press in 2012; Spatial Violence, co-edited with Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi and published by Routledge Press in 2016; and Displacements: Architecture and Refugee, published by Sternberg Press in 2017. At the University of Michigan, he has appointments in the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Department of the History of Art. In 2017-18 he is also a Visiting Associate Professor in the Urban Studies Program at Stanford University.