Skip Navigation
Search
College of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Department of Technology and Society
HomeAdministrationCore FacultyWolf Schäfer

Dr. Wolf Schäfer

PhotoChair Emeritus and John S. Toll Professor
Department of Technology and Society
M.A., University of Munich, Ph.D., University of Bremen

Professor Schäfer received his higher education in Marburg, Bonn, King's College London, Munich, and Bremen; he earned an MA in History, International Politics, and Philosophy and a PhD in History of Science and Technology and Social History.

Wolf Schäfer has worked at a German Max-Planck-Institute with C. F. von Weizsäcker and Jürgen Habermas, became a professor in Darmstadt, Germany, and moved to the United States in 1989. At Stony Brook University, he pioneered global history as an alternative to traditional world history, founded the Center for Global & Local History, the  Institute for Global Studies, and the Globality Studies Journal.

Professor Schäfer is the author of numerous articles and books.  His current research and teaching focuses on Automotive Ethics and the organizational history of big science projects in the US and Germany during World War II. In 2017, he analyzed Donald Trump's language and the "eight deadly forces of Trumpism"  in a book-length manuscript that he self-published at the end of Trump's presidency in 2020/21 on a website entitled Make Trumpism Small Again.

Wolf Schäfer has served Stony Brook University's International Academic Programs and Services as Associate  and  Interim Dean. He was awarded a 2013 Berlin Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin and was the Academy’s Dean of Fellows in 2014/15.  In June 2020, the Academy published Schäfer's take on Germany’s best practices in the battle against COVID-19.

Selected Publications in English:

  • Finalization in Science: The Social Orientation of Scientific Progress. Edited and co-authored. Dordrecht, Boston, and London, D. Reidel Publishing Co. 1983 (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 77), 315 pp.
  • Encyclopedia of Globalization. Editors-in-chief: Roland Robertson and Jan Aart Scholte. Associate Editors: Fantu Cheru, Christine Chinkin, Ken Conca, Robert Holton, Wolf Schäfer, Otávio Velho, Ingrid Volkmer, and Wang Ning. New York and London, Routledge 2007. 4 volumes, 1728 pp.
  • New Asias: Global Futures of World Regions. Co-edited with Hyun-Chin Lim and Suk-Man Hwang. Seoul, Seoul National University Press 2010 (SNU Series in Asian Studies, vol. 1), 317 pp.
  • Global Challenges in Asia: New Development Models and Regional Community Building. Co-edited with Hyun-Chin Lim and Suk-Man Hwang. Seoul: Seoul National University Press 2014 (SNUAC Series in Asian Studies, vol. 3), 392 pp.

Office: 1209 Old Computer Science
Office Hours:  By appointment
Phone: 631-632-7924
Email:  wolf.schafer@stonybrook.edu