Joachim J. Savelsberg is a Professor of Sociology and Law and the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair at the University of Minnesota. Recent writings address issues of law regarding hate, genocide and atrocities, especially their public representations and collective memories. They include "Writing biography in the face of cultural trauma: Nazi descent and the management of spoiled identities" (American Journal of Cultural Sociology 2022), Knowing about Genocide: Armenian Suffering and Epistemic Struggles (University of California Press, 2021), Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur (University of California Press, 2015), "Representing Human Rights Violations in Darfur: Global Justice, National Distinctions" (with Hollie Nyseth Brehm; American Journal of Sociology [AJS] 2015); American Memories: Atrocities and the Law (with Ryan D. King; Russell Sage Foundation, 2011); Crime and Human Rights: Criminology of Genocide and Atrocities (Sage, 2010); "Law and Collective Memory" (with King; Annual Review of Law & Social Science 2007); and "Institutionalizing Collective Memories of Hate: Law and Law Enforcement in Germany and the United States" (with King; AJS 2005).

Savelsberg is a past candidate for President of the American Society of Criminology (ASC), an ASC Fellow, and a recipient of the Freda Adler Scholarship Award. He held fellowships and Visiting Professorships at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, the universities of Graz, Munich, and Humboldt (Berlin), the Kaete Hamburger Center "Law as Culture" (Bonn), the Rockefeller Center at Bellagio, the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (South Africa) and the Paris Institute for Advanced Studies. Savelsberg is a past co-editor of the Law & Society Review), a past chair of the ASA Section for Sociology of Law, the ASA Section for Human Rights, and the SSSP Theory Division.