Alexandra Shepard is Professor of

Gender History Gender history is a sub-field of history and gender studies, which looks at the past from the perspective of gender. It is in many ways, an outgrowth of women's history. The discipline considers in what ways historical events and periodization impa ...

at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. In 2018 Shepard was elected a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # C ...

in recognition for her work in gender history and the social history of early modern Britain. In 2019 she was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

Career

Shepard is Professor of Gender History within the School of Humanities at the University of Glasgow, where her research interests focus on early modern British history, with an emphasis on the social, cultural and economic history and gender relations. Her work has particular emphasis on masculinity in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, and more recently has undertaken comparative research on women's work and agency in early modern history. Her work has contributed to changing the understanding of working-class life over the past five centuries. She is Co-Investigator of the

Arts and Humanities Research Council The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. History The Arts an ...

funded project ‘Women Negotiating the Boundaries of Justice: Britain and Ireland, c.1100-c.1750’, which explores women's access to justice across Britain and Ireland between the 12th and 18th centuries. Shepard also leads a Leverhulme International Network Grant on “Producing Change: Gender and Work in Early Modern Europe", awarded in 2015. She previously worked as a lecturer in history at

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

. Her PhD thesis studied Early Modern student life at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, and in particular how undergraduate students expressed their male identities.

Awards

Shepard won the

Leo Gershoy Award The Leo Gershoy Award is a book prize awarded by the American Historical Association for the best publication in English dealing with the history of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Endowed in 1975 by the Gershoy family and first ...

in 2016 for second book, ''Accounting for Oneself'', published in February 2015; an annual prize awarded by the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

for outstanding works published on 17th- and 18th-century European history’. The book, a culmination of a decade of work, examines how ordinary people valued themselves and understood social order and self-esteem, using innovative methods of

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...

. Shepard used over 13,000 witness statements, of which 3,331 were by women, made between the years 1550 to 1728 in church courts and Cambridge University courts, to examine the relationship between wealth, occupation and social identity. In 2004, whilst at Christ's College, Cambridge, Dr Shepard was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize. In 2017, Shepard received a Leverhulme Research Fellowships for research on family and economy in England, 1660–1815.

Bibliography

* Shepard, A. (2015) ''Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status and the Social Order in Early Modern England.'' Oxford University Press: Oxford. * Shepard, A. (2003) ''The Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England, 1560-1640.'' Series: Oxford studies in social history. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shepard, Alexandra Alumni of the University of Cambridge Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British women historians Scottish women historians Fellows of the British Academy Gender studies academics Academics of the University of Glasgow Historians of the early modern period