
You have reached the personal web site of Joachim Savelsberg, a professor in the Department of Sociology and an affiliate with the Law School of the University of Minnesota. I am also a holder of the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair, dedicated to issues of human rights and genocide.
My most recent book, Knowing about Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggles, was published in 2021 with the University of California Press. See a 5-minute summary video.
Recent publications address representations and memories of mass violence, especially through legal intervention, for cases such as Darfur as well as the My Lai massacre, and war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Previous research concerns comparative imprisonment rates, the sociology of criminology, sentencing guidelines in the light of Weberian sociology of law, and the criminalization of white collar offenses.
I earned my degrees in my native Germany (Cologne and Trier). After research positions at Bremen and Hanover (KFN) and post-doctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins (1982) and Harvard (1986, John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow), I joined the Minnesota faculty in 1989. Subsequent visiting professorships and fellowships brought me to Bellagio (Rockefeller Foundation), Berlin (Humboldt University), Bonn (Kaete Hamburger Institute), Graz (Karl Franzens University), Munich (Ludwig Maximilian University), Paris (Institut d'études avancées), and Stellenbosch (STIAS).
I am married to Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg, a cultural anthropologist and Africanist on the faculty of Carleton College. We have two adult daughters, Anna and Rebecca. Here is a biographical interview, conducted by Ryan D. King.
My most recent book, Knowing about Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggles, was published in 2021 with the University of California Press. See a 5-minute summary video.
Recent publications address representations and memories of mass violence, especially through legal intervention, for cases such as Darfur as well as the My Lai massacre, and war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Previous research concerns comparative imprisonment rates, the sociology of criminology, sentencing guidelines in the light of Weberian sociology of law, and the criminalization of white collar offenses.
I earned my degrees in my native Germany (Cologne and Trier). After research positions at Bremen and Hanover (KFN) and post-doctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins (1982) and Harvard (1986, John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow), I joined the Minnesota faculty in 1989. Subsequent visiting professorships and fellowships brought me to Bellagio (Rockefeller Foundation), Berlin (Humboldt University), Bonn (Kaete Hamburger Institute), Graz (Karl Franzens University), Munich (Ludwig Maximilian University), Paris (Institut d'études avancées), and Stellenbosch (STIAS).
I am married to Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg, a cultural anthropologist and Africanist on the faculty of Carleton College. We have two adult daughters, Anna and Rebecca. Here is a biographical interview, conducted by Ryan D. King.