Biographical Summary

Raphael Rössel has been a research fellow in North American History at the German Historical Institute Washington since 2023. His research interests include the history of disability, college life, and family history in transatlantic perspectives. He studied History, English, and American Studies at Kiel University where he also received his Phd in History in 2022 with a dissertation on the history of family care for disabled children in the Federal Republic of Germany. Focusing on the perspectives of the household members, his Phd project unearthed the intricate and complex lived realities of these families, the agency of both care givers and care receivers and contrasted their experiences with overarching trends within cotemporary German history. His dissertation received multiple awards and was shortlisted for the prestigious Hedwig Hintze Preis for the best dissertation which is awarded by the German Association of Historians. Before joining the GHI as a research fellow in October 2023, he taught classes at the Universities of Kiel and Hagen. His first monograph Belastete Familien? Eine Alltagsgeschichte westdeutscher Haushalte mit behinderten Kindern (1945–1990) was published in 2022. He has written various articles on the modern history of disabilities and people with disabilities and also co-edited special issues on the history of disability. His new research project focuses on the history of hazing at 19th and early 20th century American colleges.