Duke CJS Celebrates 50 Years: Memoir Launch with Eric Meyers

The Duke Center for Jewish Studies celebrates 50 years at Duke with the launch of Eric Meyers' memoir An Accidental Archaeologist: A Personal Memoir Paperback. Professor Meyers will have a conversation about why he wrote his memoir, followed by a celebratory gala reception.

Eric M. Meyers is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Emeritus Professor in Jewish Studies at Duke University. He founded the Center for Jewish Studies at Duke in 1972. His specialties include biblical studies, Jewish history, and archaeology. He has directed or co-directed digs in Israel and Italy for over forty years and has authored hundreds of articles, reviews, reports, 15 books and edited many others. His most recent excavations at Sepphoris were fully published in 2018 by Penn State University Press under the Eisenbraun imprint. Yale University Press published his volume with Mark A. Chancey: Alexander to Constantine: Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, Volume 3, in 2012 in its Anchor Bible Reference Library.

This personal and professional memoir recounts the author's formative years and the family influences that propelled him forward. The experience of anti-Semitism in grammar school and college played a major role. The centrality of music and family were especially influential. His partnership with Carol Meyers allowed him to have a successful career in academic archaeology and in teaching at Duke University. Other endeavors, however, kept him grounded and focused on everyday matters: singing, golf, social activism, teaching, and writing. But it was teaching most of all that imbued his life with special meaning as both student and teacher confronted the riches of the past in a search for a better future.