Ralph Grunewald is an associate professor in the Department of English and the Legal Studies Program. He studies the relationship between law and the humanities and literature in particular. Ralph received his law degree from the University of Mainz and the State of Bavaria, Germany, a Ph.D. in Criminal Law and Criminology from the University of Mainz (2002, summa cum laude) and a Master’s Degree (LL.M.) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School (2005). He has taught at German law schools but also practiced law at a law firm specializing on white collar and corporate crime defense work. At UW-Madison, Ralph teaches classes on American criminal justice, juvenile justice, comparative criminal justice, and law and literature. His publications include a monograph on the principle of education in in the German Juvenile Court Act and various articles on questions of criminal law and legal narratology. He is currently working on comparative problems of wrongful convictions and on a larger project in which he assesses the legal and literary construction of guilt.
Ralph is a member of the UW-Madison Teaching Academy and a Bradley Learning Community Faculty Fellow. He has been selected to receive the William H. Kiekhofer Teaching Award.