The 2023 Dan David Prize winners were selected from hundreds of nominations submitted by colleagues, institutions and the general public in an open nomination process. The finalists were chosen by a global committee of experts that changes annually.
Saheed Aderinto, a Nigerian professor of History and African Diaspora Studies, has won the 2023 Dan David Prize.
Aderinto, who lecturers at the Florida International
University, was one of nine announced on Tuesday as winners of $300,000 each
for their contributions to history research.
Announcing the winners, Professor Ariel Porat, President of
the Tel Aviv University, and Chairman of the Dan David Prize Board, described
the works of the nine recipients as exemplifying outstanding research in
history and related fields.
He said, “The nine recipients exemplify outstanding research
in history and related fields. They were chosen by a committee of international
experts, following an open nomination process.
“Their scholarship reflects the interests of Dan David, the
founder of the prize who was a businessman with a passion for archeology and
history.”
Porat said the prize had since 2022 focused exclusively on
history in its many facets.
“Giving this annual prize,” he continued, “provides the
opportunity to celebrate the exceptional work of scholars and practitioners who
surprise us with insights into people, places and ideas that might otherwise
remain forgotten or misunderstood”.
Taking to Facebook to celebrate his win, Aderinto expressed
delight in winning what he described as the biggest financial reward for
discipline in the history discipline.
Yes! I just won the largest history prize in the world. It’s
$300,000. For me, alone. One lump sum. 220 million, in Nigerian currency,” he
said.
“I have just received the highest financial reward for
excellence in the historical discipline, on planet earth. It’s a prize, not a
grant. I don’t think there is any history prize worth $100,000 in cash — much
less $300,000.
“While 300k is a lot of money in any strong global currency,
the true value of the Dan David Prize is not the cash per se but what it would
help me do for my students and mentees, institutions, global infrastructure of
knowledge, and communities of practice. Hence, the award is about my scholarly
achievement as much as about the people, institutions, and communities I represent.”
Aderinto said the selection committee lauded his work “for
situating African history at the cutting edge of diverse literatures in the
history of sexuality, nonhumans, and violence, noting that it is exceptional to
see a single person leading scholarship in all of these fields”.
The Dan David Prize was founded in 2000 with an endowment by
Romanian-born Israeli businessman and philanthropist Dan David. Between 2001
and 2021, it awarded $1 million, each, to three very senior extraordinary
humans in science, medicine, public health, politics, economics, art, and
literature.
Past recipients include Dr. Anthony Fauci, the public face
of the US fight against COVID-19; former American Vice-President Al Gore; and
MIT economics professor and Nobel Prize Winner Esther Duflo.
“In 2022, the Dan David Prize was redesigned to become the
largest history prize on earth to recognize nine exceptional historians with
$300,000, each. $ 2.7 million in total. Recipients’ Ph.D. mustn’t be older than
15 years. I received my Ph.D. 13 years ago. I’m among the second cohort of the
new history-focused Dan David Prize,” Aderinto added.
Who are the winners of the 2023 Dan David Prize?
The nine winners of the 2023 Dan David Prize are international, from Kenya, Ireland, Denmark, Israel, Canada and the United States.
- Saheed Aderinto, Florida International University: A historian who uses unusual lenses such as sexuality, guns, animals and music to reexamine colonial identity and subjecthood in modern Africa, with a particular focus on Nigeria.
- Ana Antic, University of Copenhagen: A social and cultural historian whose research focuses on the relationship between politics, violence and psychiatry in twentieth-century Europe, as well as the decolonization of psychiatric practices and concepts.
- Karma Ben Johanan, Hebrew University: A scholar who looks at the relationships between different religious traditions, most recently working on how the Catholic Church responded to Jews after the reconciliation attempts of Vatican II, and how orthodox Jewish thinkers have responded to the same developments.
- Elise Burton, University of Toronto: A historian of science, race and nationalism in the modern Middle East, focusing on the history of genetics, physical anthropology, evolutionary biology and biomedicine.
- Adam Clulow, University of Texas at Austin: A global historian who reassesses power relations between Europe and East Asia, and uses video games and VR to make history accessible to both students and the wider public.
- Krista Goff, University of Miami: A historian who uses oral history and everyday sources to understand the experiences of understudied ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union, especially those not recognized as nationalities by the state; Stephanie Jones-Rogers, University of California Berkeley: A historian who explores women’s social, economic and legal relationships to enslaved people and to the slave trade in the trans-Atlantic world.
- Anita Radini, University College, Dublin: An “archaeologist of dirt” who analyzes the tiny remains of dust that collect in dental plaque, and uses them to learn about the work lives and environments of people in the past; and
- Chao Tayiana Maina, Kenya: A public historian who uses digital technologies to capture and preserve previously hidden or suppressed historical narratives in Kenya, enabling communities to engage with their cultural heritage.