Queens College professor earns prestigious award
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | MARCH 18 - MARCH 24, 2022 5
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
Kristina Richardson, an
associate professor of history
at Queens College and the
CUNY Graduate Center, is
one of nine outstanding early
and mid-career scholars
awarded the Dan David Prize,
a major international award
that recognizes and supports
outstanding contributions to
the study of history and other
disciplines that shed light on
the human past.
The world’s largest history
prize, the Dan David is sometimes
described as the Nobel
Prize for history. A committee
of eminent scholars in
the historical fields assessed
hundreds of nominations
from around the world as
part of a rigorous process to
select the winners, who will
each receive $300,000 to recognize
their achievements to
date and support their future
work.
“It is deeply gratifying to
see Professor Kristina Richardson’s
work recognized
with the top academic history
prize,” said Queens College
President Frank Wu. “It is external
validation of what we
have long known at Queens
College — that our students
are learning from world-class
faculty.”
Richardson studies the
medieval Islamic world and
the Roma. Her investigation
of Arabic manuscripts
highlights the importance
of understanding the lives of
non-elites and marginalized
groups when seeking to gain
a complete view of a society
as a whole.
“I feel exceptionally lucky
to have top historians recognize
my work in this way,”
Richardson said. “And I am
grateful for the support of
CUNY along the way, as I’ve
built my career.”
Richardson’s research is
based on the writings and
material production of nonelites
in the medieval Middle
East. She has analyzed the
intellectual networks of medieval
disabled writers, explored
the degraded position
of blue- and green-eyed people
in early Islamic societies,
identified the only known
pre-modern Arabic sign alphabet
and co-published a
study and edition of the earliest
known notebook of an
artisan or merchant written
in Arabic.
She has focused her study
on the disabled and the Roma
and is currently writing a
book about free and unfree
African and Asian manual laborers
in early Islamic Basra,
Iraq.
Her findings force a radically
new understanding of
European modernity and
the place of linguistic and
ethnic minorities in its formation.
Her research into
Romani contributions to
late medieval and early modern
European society provide
much needed context
for modern appreciation of
the long history of Roma in
Europe.
Richardson is the author
of “Difference and Disability
in the Medieval Islamic
World” (2012), “Roma in the
Medieval Islamic World: Literacy,
Culture, and Migration”
(2022) and co-author
with Boris Liebrenz of “The
Notebook of Kem l al-D n the
Weaver” (2021). She is also
the co-editor of the journal
“Der Islam.”
Richardson earned a BA
in history and certificate
in Near Eastern Studies at
Princeton University and
later received a master’s
degree and a Ph.D. at the
University of Michigan. Her
work has been supported by
the National Endowment of
the Humanities, European
Research Council, Marie
Curie Foundation, Mellon
Foundation, ArtSTOR and
the City University of New
York.
Kristina Richardson, associate professor of history at Queens
College and the CUNY Graduate Center, was awarded the Dan David
Prize. Photo courtesy of Queens College
/QNS.COM
