Anne Cubilie

Anne Cubilié was born and raised in Washington state. After finishing her BA in English at the University of Oregon she moved to Philadelphia to pursue a PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in her areas of interest: transitional justice, literature of atrocity, witnessing and testimony by survivors of atrocity, genocide, mass human rights abuses. She spent eight years at Georgetown University as Assistant Professor of Transnational Feminist Cultural Studies, was a founding member of the GU Communication, Culture and Technology graduate program, and served on the Boards of Women’s Studies, Justice and Peace Studies, and the Culture and Politics program of the School of Foreign Service.

In 2003, Dr. Cubilié left Georgetown to work at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. During her ten years with the United Nations, she worked in policy, humanitarian response and capacity development, received training in peacemaking, preventive diplomacy and management, and maintained a consistent interest in bridging the gap between academic research and the political and policy considerations of international aid.

She returned to Washington State in 2013 to join Central Washington University (CWU). She served as Director of the William O. Douglas Honors College (DHC) for eight years, and as CWU Associate Provost from 2015-2017. She teaches classes in her areas of expertise, as well as her subspecialties in film and cultural studies, and is an affiliate faculty member for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Her book, Women Witness Terror: Testimony and the Cultural Politics of Human Rights, reads testimony by women survivors of war and human rights abuse through critical frameworks of ethics, trauma and witnessing. She has co-edited a special issue of the journal Discourse on "The Future of Testimony," given numerous lectures both in the US and internationally on testimony, ethics, human rights and trauma, served as the inaugural Human Rights Fellow at Duke University, and been awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship. Her work for the United Nations ranges from the collection of survivor testimony in Afghanistan to policy guidance for emergency response, as well as major reports and funding documents, risk assessment and strategic planning. She has lived and worked in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Egypt.