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Dr. Richard F. Wetzell

Research Fellow
German Historical Institute
1607 New Hampshire Ave NW
Washington DC 20009
U.S.A.
Phone +1.202.387.3355

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Biographical Summary

Richard F. Wetzell is a Research Fellow and Editor at the GHI. His research focuses on the intersection of legal history, political history, and the history of science. Trained at Swarthmore College (B.A.), Columbia University (M.A.) and Stanford University (Ph.D.), he is the author of Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 2000) and co-editor of Criminals and Their Scientists: The History of Criminology in International Perspective (Cambridge UP, 2006). He is currently completing a legal and political history of penal reform titled The Politics of Punishment in Modern Germany: Reforming Criminal Justice, 1870-1970. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University and has taught at Stanford University, the University of Maryland at College Park, and Georgetown University.


Main Areas of Interest

  • Modern German history
  • Legal history
  • Cultural history
  • History of science and medicine
  • History of deviance and social control
  • History of sexuality


GHI Research Project


Professional Positions

since 2002 Research Fellow and Editor, German Historical Institute Washington DC
(Editor, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute)
since 2005 Adjunct Associate Professor, BMW Center for German and European Studies, Georgetown University (Spring 2005, Spring 2008, Fall 2008)
2000 - 2002 Research Fellow, German Historical Institute Washington DC
1995 - 2000 Assistant Professor of History, University of Maryland, College Park
1993 - 1995 Post-Doctoral Fellow, Center for European Studies, Harvard University
1991 - 1993 Assistant Professor of History, University of Maryland, College Park