Mal Meisels (they/them) is a Ph.D. candidate in the UCLA Department of Art History. They specialize in nineteenth-century French art at the intersections of queer theory and form, state power, and histories of French colonialism in North Africa. Their dissertation investigates the confluences and conflicts between queerness and state power at the French estate of By-Thomery, a homophilic artist commune near the Fontainebleau forest. By-Thomery was home to animalièr.e. Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899), her lovers and collaborators Nathalie Micas (1824-1889) and Anna Klumpke (1856-1942), and a menagerie of wild and domestic non-human animals.

Mal’s research is deeply connected to their teaching and curatorial practices. As a teaching assistant at UCLA, they have developed syllabi and lesson plans that foreground the radical potentials of art historical theory and praxis. In 2025, they curated Queer Kin: Histories of Subversive Love at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in the historic West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles. Queer Kin closely attended to moments of LGBTQIA+ mutual care, romantic connection, sexual desire, and family structures within the Clark’s collections.

All Mal’s work is informed by contemporary socio-political realities and their personal background in politics and queer activism. Mal advocated for Jewish queer youth at Yeshiva University, their alma mater, and published an op-ed in The New York Times about the Jewish queer experience.