Former CEU Board of Trustees member Natalie Zemon Davis has been awarded the Norwegian Holberg Prize 2010 for her outstanding scholarly work in the field of History.
The Prize Academic Committee expressed its praise for Professor Davis in its citation: “Natalie Zemon Davis is one of the most creative historians writing today, an intellectual who is not hostage to any particular school of thought or politics. Her writing is richly textured, multi-faceted and meticulously documented. She shows how particular events can be narrated and analyzed so as to reveal deeper historical tendencies and underlying patterns of thought and action. Her work brings gender to the fore, while insisting that the relationship between men and women is always embedded in the cultural discourses and social organizations specific to their time.”
The Holberg International Memorial Prize was established by the Norwegian Parliament in 2003, and is awarded annually by the Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund for outstanding scholarly work in the fields of the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology.
The Prize is awarded to a scholar who has made an outstanding contribution, either within one of these academic fields alone or through interdisciplinary work.
The prizewinner must have had a decisive influence on international research in the field, for instance through the development of new theory, knowledge or insight, through making innovative use of existing theories or through the methods employed.
The Board of the Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund gives the award on the recommendation of the Holberg Prize Academic Committee, consisting of outstanding scholars from the relevant academic fields. The prize is worth EUR 550,000 The Award ceremony is set to take place on Wednesday, June 9th 2010.
Natalie Zemon Davis is currently Adjunct Professor of History and Anthropology and Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. She has taught at Brown University, the University of Toronto, the University of California at Berkeley, and from 1978 to her retirement in 1996, at Princeton University, where she became the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History and director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies. She received an Honorary Doctorate from CEU in 2007.
