When I was in graduate school at Princeton in the 1980’s, Natalie Zemon Davis presented two chapters of her book Fictions in the Archive to the History Department’s weekly research seminar. It was a memorable moment. Here was one of the greatest historians of our time, having her book commented on in draft by colleagues such as Robert Darnton, Anthony Grafton, Lawrence Stone, Sean Wilentz, William Chester Jordan, Arno Mayer and Christine Stansell. At a remove of some thirty-five years, I don’t remember many of the specific points they made. I do recall that several of Natalie’s male colleagues kept insisting that the book did not have a sufficiently robust thesis. One of them kept jabbing his finger in the air, saying “what’s the point, Natalie? What’s the point?” making me think rather more deeply about gendered styles in academia than I had previously done. But what I remember most vividly was the comment from Stone, a great historian of early modern England. He said that reading Natalie Davis’s work was like seeing fire arrows shot into a dark cave, illuminating the sides as they flew by. He didn’t mean it entirely as a compliment. Stone always liked strong theses; the more combative, the better. But it struck me as very apt. Natalie Davis’s work was nothing if not an illumination.
Thank you for this, David. I met her for the first time when she came to speak at Smith College where I had a post-doc. This was when she was touring to talk about what would become Trickster Travels. When I went up to her after to introduce myself, she asked me about MY work, and expressed what seemed like genuine interest in what I was doing. Just last year, we had a brief correspondence when a journalist contacted me about charivaris and I said that they should read Natalie and copied her. She was sharp as a tack that recently. An amazing scholar and a warm and generous person.
An excellent tribute. There will be many to come as she was very much one of a kind.
Thank you, Lynn!
Beautiful, David.
Thank you for this, David. I met her for the first time when she came to speak at Smith College where I had a post-doc. This was when she was touring to talk about what would become Trickster Travels. When I went up to her after to introduce myself, she asked me about MY work, and expressed what seemed like genuine interest in what I was doing. Just last year, we had a brief correspondence when a journalist contacted me about charivaris and I said that they should read Natalie and copied her. She was sharp as a tack that recently. An amazing scholar and a warm and generous person.
A lovely essay about a wonderful scholar and mentor. We are lucky to have shared the earth with NZD for so long.
A lovely tribute. Thank you.
Thank you David for sharing this moving appreciation, so well done at a time when many of us are at a loss for words.
thank you, Peter. Hope you are well.