James V. Wertsch (born May 16, 1947) is the David R. Francis Distinguished Professor and Director Emeritus of the
McDonnell International Scholars Academy
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
at
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
.
Education and career
Wertsch received an A.B. in psychology from
University of Illinois, Urbana
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign, Illinois, Champai ...
in 1969, an M.A.T. in education from
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
in 1971, and a PhD in educational psychology from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
in 1975.
After finishing his Ph.D, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the USSR Academy of Sciences and Moscow State University, where he studied with the neuropsychologist
Alexander R. Luria.
From 2012 to 2018 he also served as vice chancellor for international relations at Washington University in St. Louis. A professor of sociocultural anthropology, Wertsch studies national narratives and memory, collective memory and identity, especially in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union, as well as in the United States.
His publications include the volumes ''Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind'' (1985), ''Voices of the Mind'' (1991), ''Mind as Action'' (1998), ''Voices of Collective Remembering'' (2002), and ''How Nations Remember: A Narrative Approach'' (2021).
Wertsch has held faculty positions at Northwestern University in the department of linguistics, the University of California, San Diego in the department of communication, Clark University in the department of psychology, and Washington University in St. Louis in the department of anthropology.
In addition, he has been a visiting professor at the University of Utrecht (Belle van Zuylen Research Professor), Moscow State University (Fulbright Senior Lecturer), the University of Seville, the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Social Sciences, Bristol University, and the University of Oslo.
He is also an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Education and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and he has served as a guest professor at the University of Oslo in Norway, Tsinghua University in Beijing, and at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Wertsch is a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Russian Academy of Education, and he holds honorary degrees from Linköping University and the University of Oslo.
Books
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wertsch, James
1947 births
Living people
American male writers
Northwestern University alumni
University of Chicago alumni
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni
Washington University in St. Louis faculty