Gabriel Finkelstein


Gabriel Finkelstein is an historian of science and the biographer of Emil du Bois-Reymond, a German neuroscientist and public intellectual. His research focuses on 19th-century exploration, biology, and historiography.

Career

After studying physics at Amherst College and history at Princeton University, Finkelstein worked at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Göttingen, UCLA, and Princeton University before joining the University of Colorado Denver in 1999. He was promoted to Associate Professor of History in 2006. In 2022 he visited the , as a Fellow.
The eight years that Finkelstein spent in France and Germany had a significant influence on his research. His biography of Emil du Bois-Reymond received an Honorable Mention in the History of Science category of the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence, was named by the American Association for the Advancement of Science as one of the Best Books of 2014, and was shortlisted for the 2014 John Pickstone Prize, awarded biennially by the British Society for the History of Science and considered one of the most prestigious prizes for scholarly books in the field. The biography has also been discussed by The Guardian, ''The Scientist, New Books Network, Scientific American, Il Sole 24 Oro, and numerous blogs.
Additionally, Finkelstein advised Hubert Sauper on his documentary film Darwin's Nightmare'', which was nominated for an Academy Award.
Gabriel Finkelstein is the son of the neurologist Jack Finkelstein and the poet Caroline Finkelstein and nephew of the lawyer David I. Shapiro. His brother breeds queen bees.

Publications (select)

  • “.” Theory in Biosciences 138, no. 1 : 105–112.
  • Emil du Bois-Reymond: Neuroscience, Self, and Society in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Cambridge; London: The MIT Press, 2013.. OCLC
  • "." In Les élèves de Claude Bernard : Les nouvelles disciplines bernardiennes au tournant du XXe siècle, ed. Jean-Gäel Barbara and Pierre Corvol, 173–192. Paris: Éditions Hermann, 2012.
  • “.” Science 294, no. 5549 : 2101–2102.
  • “.” History of Science 38, pt. 2, no. 120 : 179–218.