Academic Bio
I am a landscape archaeologist specializing in the histories of human-environment interactions in arid climates, particularly in the Middle East, with a focus on the struggle for water provision. The vital need to secure a baseline of water access in these environments is achieved through a combination of technical and sociopolitical means. A common thread across my research projects is understanding how the socio-technical affordances of water management, in different historical and geographical contexts, shape communities’ opportunities for economic prosperity and the extent to which this pursuit entails a loss of personal and communal agency.
My research stems from my dissatisfaction with the prevailing historical narrative that attributes the greatest ‘accomplishments’ in water management to the top-down control of centralized states. To balance this view, I rely on long-durée urban water histories to examine the local forces and non-imperial institutions that have sustained ecological governance and social resilience.
My temporal interests are broad, from prehistory to modern. But, a large part of my recent scholarship has focused on water histories of the first and second millennium CE. These were times of significant sociopolitical change in the region, including the rise and fall of world empires, such as Sasanian and Romans, and the Islamic conquest. They were also marked by major transformations in hydraulic and agricultural technologies—such as the global spread of subterranean shaft-and-tunnel water systems, commonly known as qanats—and by a full-scale shift from subsistence agriculture to market agriculture centered on summer cash crops like cotton, sugar, and rice. Furthermore, recent evidence points to major environmental trends during these periods, including increasing aridification, the Roman Wet Period, and the Medieval Climate Anomaly.
My intellectual viewpoints and methodological toolkit are shaped by my interdisciplinary education and professional career. I have a Ph.D. from New York University (ISAW) in the interdisciplinary program called the Study of the Ancient World, and an MA in Architecture from the University of Tehran, Iran. I have also worked for more than a decade in the private sector as an architect, cultural heritage management consultant, and a software product manager.
Read about my publications here: https://chicago.academia.edu/mehrnoushsoroush