Born in Gothenburg and raised in Bua, a small fishing village on the Swedish coast, Torbjorn Wandel received his Studentexamen at Peder Skrivares Skola in Varberg before getting his Bachelor of Arts degree in History with distinction from Lund University. With the support of Thord-Gray Memorial and Bernadotte fellowships from the American-Scandinavian Foundation, he went on to do his graduate work in French history and historical theory in the history department and the Critical Theory Institute at the University of California, Irvine, where he studied with Mark Poster, Luce Giard, Jacques Derrida, Patricia O’ Brien, and Jean-Francois Lyotard. At Irvine he was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Critical Theory Emphasis and MA degree with distinction, a UC Regents Fellowship, the Graduate Essay Award in History, and the Special Award for Outstanding Teaching Associate. He was also invited to participate in its first History and Theory Forum and co-founded the Graduate Conference in History and Theory. After work as an adjunct at Scripps College and Bates College, he began in his current position at Truman State University, a highly selective liberal arts college in Kirksville in northeast Missouri, where he is now Associate Professor of History and teaches modern world, European, French, and cultural and intellectual history. He is currently at work on a book, Making History, on the emergence of the historical profession in nineteenth-century France. He has presented papers in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Israel, has had articles published in journals such as Rethinking History, The Journal of Historical Sociology and Cultural Research, and is the author of the historical survey of the early Third Republic in the Encyclopedia of Modern French Thought. He is a member of the Society for French Historical Studies and the Western Society for French History, where he has served on the Governing Council. He lives in Kirksville with his son John.