Carolin Emcke has studied philosophy, political science, and history in London, Frankfurt, and the United States. She has been a staff writer at the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel since 1998, covering human-rights violations and war crimes in Lebanon, Colombia, Nicaragua, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. 

She has been a visiting professor of political theory at Yale University, teaching seminars on theories of violence, war crimes, and cosmopolitanism. Her publications include Kollektive identitäten, sozialphilosophische grundlagen in 2000 and Von den kriegen: briefe an freunde in 2004.