Meira Gold
Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow
meira.gold@nyu.edu
(212) 998-9162
302 - 411 Laf
Office Hours
Monday BY APPT
Tuesday 10:00-12:00
Wednesday BY APPT
Thursday BY APPT
Friday BY APPT
B.A., Near and Middle Eastern Civilization and Archaeology, University of Toronto, 2013
M.A., Near and Middle Eastern Civilization, University of Toronto, 2014
Ph.D., History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, 2020
Meira Gold is a historian of science and archaeology with research interests in colonial Egyptology, human origins, and the politics of fieldwork in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her current book project, Archaeology from Ruins: Victorian Egyptology and the Making of a Colonial Field Science, provides a new account of the origins of British fieldwork in the Nile Delta from 1850 by tracing the emergence of the “field site” and “heroic excavator” as enduring archaeological tropes that were pivotal to the dispossession of Egyptian land, material remains, and pharaonic heritage. Gold is the recipient of the Alexander Prize from the Royal Historical Society for her article “Ancient Egypt and the Geological Antiquity of Man, 1847-1863” (History of Science, 2019) and the Nathan Reingold Prize from the History of Science Society for her article “Shit Archaeology: Ancient Fertilizer and the Manufacture of British Egyptology, 1870-1906” (Isis, forthcoming). Before joining Gallatin, Gold earned her PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge, where her research was co-funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). She was subsequently a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, and a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer at York University in Toronto. Gold currently organizes the NYC History of Science Working Group and hosts their monthly lecture and workshop series.
Teaching and Research Interests
history of science and technology; science and empire; science popularization; histories of archaeology particularly Egyptology and prehistory; colonial-era fieldwork and its legacies; British Empire and semi-colonial Egypt; race; evolution; gender and scientific masculinities; science and religion
