The University of Toronto's Department of History has established the Natalie Zemon Davis Memorial Essay Prize to honour the scholar, teacher and mentor who reshaped the thinking of generations of researchers across the humanities and social sciences.
The prize will be awarded annually to third- and fourth-year undergraduate students for outstanding historical writing on any topic and period.
“Natalie always encouraged young people to follow whatever kind of history they were passionate about, so we left the subject matter wide open. It’s a very fitting and lasting tribute to her,” says Eric Jennings, history professor and chair of the department.
Zemon Davis, whose research first focused on early modern France, pioneered the use of social history, positing that culture is at the core of understanding economics and social class. The hallmark of her research was reconstructing the stories of ordinary people, focusing on history’s marginalized characters, including women, the impoverished and the enslaved.
“It’s important to celebrate the life and work of someone like Natalie,” says Associate Professor Paul Cohen, who completed his PhD under Zemon Davis’ supervision at Princeton. “It demonstrates how indispensable and vital history — and more broadly, the humanities — is as a mode of inquiry, as a way of thinking.”
Her attentiveness to gender and women's experiences was central to her earliest research papers and lectures. Zemon Davis first taught at U of T as an adjunct professor, and, in 1971, she co-designed and taught the first women’s history course offered at a Canadian university, with her collaborator and close friend, Jill Ker Conway.
Throughout her career, Zemon Davis blazed similar trails at Berkeley and Princeton. Her scholarship was widely celebrated and profoundly original. Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1975) introduced historians to cultural anthropology and helped establish cultural history as a field. The Return of Martin Guerre (1983) stemmed from her work as a screenwriter and historical advisor for the film of the same name, which won the César Award for best screenplay— France's equivalent of the Oscars. And in Women on the Margins (1995), she traced the lives of three 17th-century women who carved out extraordinary existences at the edges of their societies.
“I have wanted to be a historian of hope,” Zemon Davis once remarked during an interview. “We can take heart from the fact that no matter how dire the situation, some will find means to resist, some will find means to cope, and some will remember and tell stories about what happened.”
Zemon Davis returned to U of T as professor emerita in 1996. She mentored countless undergraduate and graduate students across disciplines — not just history, but comparative literature, medieval studies and women and gender studies. Students working on topics far outside her expertise would ask Zemon Davis to supervise them anyway.
It's a wonderful opportunity to recognize the outstanding work of our history students. And to celebrate the extent to which Natalie invested herself in our students with enormous generosity and genuine intellectual interest.
“She’d always say yes,” recalls Jennings. “She was genuinely curious about everything and saw it as an opportunity to learn something new.”
Among her many honours and distinctions, in 2012, Zemon Davis received the National Humanities Medal from U.S. President Barack Obama and was named a Companion of the Order of Canada. Despite her many accolades, her desire for learning, teaching and writing was never sated.
When Zemon Davis died in 2023 at age 94, she was working on a book about slavery in a former Dutch colony in South America and collaborating with a Lebanese Canadian playwright on a theatrical adaptation of her work.
“The circles of her communities were extraordinarily broad and vibrant,” says Cohen. “I like to think this prize will keep that part of her spirit alive.”
The Department of History is seeking donations to support the essay prize in Zemon Davis’ name, which will recognize the type of creative and pathbreaking research she championed throughout her career.
“It's a wonderful opportunity to recognize the outstanding work of our history students,” Cohen says. “And to celebrate the extent to which Natalie invested herself in our students with enormous generosity and genuine intellectual interest.”