Lynn Meskell
{{Short description|Australian-born archaeologist and anthropologist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox academic
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Lynn Meskell
| image =
| image_size =
| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1967}}
| alma_mater = University of Sydney (BA)
| discipline = Archaeology
| workplaces = {{plainlist|
- University of Pennsylvania
- Stanford University
- Columbia University
- Oxford University
- University of Cambridge
- University of Sydney}}
| main_interests = Archaeological Theory, Archaeological ethnography, UNESCO World Heritage, Heritage ethics, Egyptian archaeology, Çatalhöyük, Gender studies, Postcolonial theory, Feminist theory
}}
Lynn Meskell (born 1967) is an Australian archaeologist and anthropologist who currently works as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.{{Citation |last=Joyce |first=Rosemary A. |title=Meskell, Lynn |date=2014 |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_1295 |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology |pages=4780–4783 |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Claire |place=New York, NY |publisher=Springer |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_1295 |isbn=978-1-4419-0465-2 |access-date=2022-12-04|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite web |title=Lynn Meskell {{!}} Department of Anthropology |url=https://anthropology.sas.upenn.edu/people/lynn-meskell |access-date=2020-08-01 |website=anthropology.sas.upenn.edu}}
She has worked as the 26th Penn Integrates Knowledge Program (PIK) Professor since her appointment in 2020, which is a program appointed to faculty with multidisciplinary research and teaching and who are working in at least two Penn Schools.{{Cite web |last=Ozio |first=Ron |date=2020-11-18 |title=Lynn Meskell appointed Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor |url=https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/lynn-meskell-appointed-penn-integrates-knowledge-university-professor |access-date=2022-12-05 |website=Penn Today |language=en}}
Meskell is also the Richard D. Green Professor of Anthropology in the School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate Professor of Historic Preservation in the Weitzman School of Design, and a curator for the Penn Museum's Middle East and Asia areas.
Since 2019 she has been an [https://adwhiteprofessors.cornell.edu/ Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large] at Cornell University; her term expires in 2025.{{Cite web |title=Lynn Meskell – Andrew D. White Professors-at-Large Program |url=https://adwhiteprofessors.cornell.edu/professors-at-large/lynn-meskell/ |access-date=2023-04-15 |website=adwhiteprofessors.cornell.edu}}
Education
Meskell received her BA from the University of Sydney in 1994 (First Class) and University Medal. She was awarded the King's College scholarship from the University of Cambridge for her PhD in archaeology (1994–1997).{{Cite web |date=2017-05-30 |title=Laura Boldrini and Lynn Meskell awarded honorary degrees at AUR. |url=https://aur.edu/news/laura-boldrini-and-lynn-meskell-awarded-honorary-degrees-aur |access-date=2022-12-04 |website=The American University of Rome |language=en}} In her doctoral dissertation, Meskell analyzed data from the settlement and cemeteries of Deir el-Medina, a New Kingdom worker's village across the Nile River from Luxor.
Career
From 1997 to 1999, she held the Salvesen Junior Research Fellowship at New College, University of Oxford before accepting a position in the Anthropology Department at Columbia University in New York City where she taught till 2005 as Associate Professor, and then Professor. In 2005, she moved to Stanford University, where she taught in the Department of Anthropology from 2005 to 2020. From 2019 to 2020, she was the Shirley and Leonard Ely Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. She was the Director of the Stanford Archaeology Center from 2010 to 2016.https://anthropology.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/CV%202024_0.docx
Since 2020, Meskell has been a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Weitzman School of Design, and a Penn Museum curator for the Middle East and Asia.
In 2002, she was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe.{{Cite web |title=2002-2003 Resident Scholars {{!}} School for Advanced Research |url=https://sarweb.org/scholars/resident/2002-2003/,%20https://sarweb.org/scholars/resident/2002-2003/ |access-date=2022-12-04 |language=en-US}} Meskell received the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's New Directions Fellowship in 2004, supporting training in ethnography and African studies to prepare her for work in South Africa.{{Cite web |title=Center for Archaeology, Heritage & Museum Studies {{!}} Shiv Nadar University |url=https://snu.edu.in/centers-institutes/archaeology-heritage-museum |access-date=2020-08-01 |website=snu.edu.in}} She carried out fieldwork in the Kruger National Park and Mapungubwe National Park.{{Cite journal |last1=Masuku Van Damme |first1=Lynette Sibongile |last2=Meskell |first2=Lynn |date=March 2009 |title=Producing Conservation and Community in South Africa |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13668790902753088 |journal=Ethics, Place & Environment |language=en |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=69–89 |doi=10.1080/13668790902753088 |bibcode=2009EPlaE..12...69M |s2cid=143444624 |issn=1366-879X|url-access=subscription }}
Research
Meskell's interests include socio-politics, archaeological ethics, global heritage, materiality, as well as feminist and postcolonial theory. She is recognized for her contributions to feminist archaeology, archaeological ethics, and issues of heritage. Her earlier research examined social life in the New Kingdom of Egypt, natural and cultural heritage in South Africa, and the archaeology of figurines and burial at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey.
Meskell conducted an institutional ethnography of UNESCO World Heritage,
criticizing the World Heritage Program through her research.{{Cite web |date=19 November 2018 |title=UNESCO's World Heritage program has lost its way |url=https://news.stanford.edu/2018/11/19/stanford-scholar-examines-unescos-world-heritage-program/}} She traced the politics of governance and sovereignty and the subsequent implications for multilateral diplomacy, international conservation, and heritage rights. Employing archival and ethnographic analysis, she has revealed UNESCO's early forays into a one-world archaeology and its later commitments to global heritage.
In other fieldwork across India she explores monumental regimes of research and preservation around World Heritage sites and how diverse actors and agencies address the needs of living communities. In 2016, she was invited to India through the [http://www.gian.iitkgp.ac.in/ Global Initiative of Academic Networks] (GIAN) program.{{Cite web |title=Lynn Meskell {{!}} Department of History |url=https://history.snu.edu.in/people/faculty/lynn-meskell |access-date=2022-12-04 |website=history.snu.edu.in}}
Meskell founded the Journal of Social Archaeology, releasing its first publication in June 2001.{{Cite journal |date=June 2001 |title=Editorial statement |journal=Journal of Social Archaeology |language=en |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=5–12 |doi=10.1177/146960530100100101 |issn=1469-6053 |doi-access=free}}File:University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.JPG
Awards and honors
Meskell is an Honorary Professor in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and in the Center for Archaeology, Heritage & Museum Studies, Shiv Nadar University, India.
She has been awarded grants and fellowships for over 20 years from various institutions, including those from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Australian Research Council, the American Academy in Rome, the School of American Research, Oxford University and Cambridge University.
In 2017, Meskell was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. That same year, she received an Honorary Doctorate from the American University of Rome, Italy.
Books
- {{Cite book |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780203029817/archaeology-fire-lynn-meskell |title=Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East |date=2002 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781134643905 |editor-last=Meskell |editor-first=Lynn |editor-mask=3 |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |url=https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Archaeologies+of+Social+Life%3A+Age%2C+Sex%2C+Class+Etcetra+in+Ancient+Egypt-p-9780631212980 |title=Archaeologies of Social Life: Age, Sex, Class Etc. in Ancient Egypt |date=1999 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=9780631212997 |location=Oxford |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |title=Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt |date=2002 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9780691120584 |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=Meskell |first=Lynn |author-link=Lynn Meskell |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315787787/embodied-lives-bryan-turner-rosemary-joyce-lynn-meskell |title=Embodied Lives: Figuring Ancient Maya and Egyptian Experience |last2=Joyce |first2=Rosemary A. |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781315787787 |location=London |author-mask=3}}
- {{Cite book |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9780470693605 |title=A Companion to Social Archaeology |date=2004 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=9780631225782 |editor-last=Meskell |editor-first=Lynn |editor-mask=3 |location=Oxford |editor-last2=Preucel |editor-first2=Robert W. |editor-link2=Robert W. Preucel}}
- {{Cite book |title=Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt: Material Biographies Past and Present |date=2004 |publisher=Berg |isbn=9781859738672 |location=Oxford |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003085249/embedding-ethics-lynn-meskell-peter-pels |title=Embedding Ethics |date=2005 |publisher=Berg |isbn=9781845200473 |editor-last=Meskell |editor-first=Lynn |editor-mask=3 |location=Oxford |editor-last2=Pels |editor-first2=Peter}}
- {{Cite book |title=Archaeologies of Materiality |date=2005 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=9781405136174 |editor-last=Meskell |editor-first=Lynn |editor-mask=3 |location=Oxford |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |title=Cosmopolitan Archaeologies |date=2009 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=9780822344322 |editor-last=Meskell |editor-first=Lynn |editor-mask=3 |location=Durham, NC |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |title=The Nature of Heritage: The New South Africa |date=2011 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=9780470670729 |location=Oxford |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |title=Global Heritage: A Reader |date=2015 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=9781118768860 |location=Oxford |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |title=A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage and the Dream of Peace |date=2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780190648343 |location=New York City |language=en}}
References
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Category:20th-century archaeologists
Category:21st-century archaeologists
Category:20th-century Australian women scientists
Category:21st-century Australian women scientists
Category:Australian archaeologists
Category:Australian women archaeologists
Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Category:Columbia University faculty
Category:Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
Category:Stanford University faculty