Dan David Prize, World’s largest history prize announces 2023 winner

The Dan David Prize, the Tel Aviv-based largest history prize in the world, has announced its 2023 laureates. Each of the winners - nine emerging scholars and practitioners, whose work illuminates the past in bold and creative ways - will receive $300,000 in recognition of their achievements and to support their future endeavors.

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.

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. This year’s committee members were affiliated with a range of institutions including the universities of Cambridge, Paris, Pennsylvania and Seville.

“Our winners represent the new generation of historians,” said Ariel David, board member of the Prize and son of the founder. “They are changing our understanding of the past by asking new questions, targeting under-researched topics and using innovative methods. Many of the winners we are recognizing today are still in the early stages of their careers, but they have already challenged how we think about history. Understanding the past, in all its complexity, is critical to illuminating the present and confronting the challenges of the future.”

The Dan David Prize, endowed by the Dan David Foundation and headquartered at Tel Aviv University, was first established in 2001 by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Dan David, to reward innovative and interdisciplinary work that contributed to humanity. In 2021, the Prize was relaunched with a focus on historical research, honoring the founder’s passion for history and archaeology. Today, the Prize rewards emerging scholars, aiming to help both academics and public historians fulfill their potential at a time when support for the humanities is dwindling.

The late Dan David lived through persecution in Nazi-occupied and then Communist Romania, becoming an accomplished photographer and later an entrepreneur and philanthropist. David was fascinated by automatic instant photography, and he built a company that introduced Israel and other countries around the globe to the automatic photo booth. David had a keen interest in history and archaeology, believing that understanding the past is critical to understanding who we are today.

The nine 2023 winners will be honored at the Dan David Prize Award Ceremony in Tel Aviv in May.