Professor Alex Shepard
- Professor of Gender History (History)
telephone: 5909
email: Alex.Shepard@glasgow.ac.uk
Research interests
My research addresses the social, cultural and economic history of early modern Britain, with an emphasis on gender relations. Since the publication of my first book, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2003), I have been interested in the relationship between gender and class. My second book, Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status and the Social Order in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2015) is a study of the language of self-description deployed by thousands of witnesses asserting their creditworthiness in court, offering a bottom-up perspective on the social order, gender relations, and social change between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Accounting for Oneself won the Leo Gershoy Award, a prize awarded annually by the American Historical Association to ‘the author of the most outstanding work published in English on any aspect of 17th- and 18th-century European history’. As Co-I of an AHRC funded project on ‘Women Negotiating the Boundaries of Justice: Britain and Ireland, c.1100-c.1750’, and as leader of a Leverhulme International Network Grant on ‘Producing Change: Gender and Work in Early Modern Europe’, I am currently involved in comparative research projects on women’s agency before the law and on gender and the early modern economy. I am also currently researching a book on childcare, family and economy in Britain, 1650-1850.
Grants
- 2015-18: Leverhulme International Network, ‘Producing change: gender and work in early modern Europe’
- 2015 (Aug-Dec): Hinkley Visiting Professorship, John Hopkins University, USA
- 2014-18: AHRC Research Grant (Co-I): ‘Women negotiating the boundaries of justice in Britain and Ireland, 1100-1750’
- 2013: Visiting Scholar in Gender and History, University of Connecticut, USA
- 2012: Leverhulme Research Fellowship (12 months)
- 2010-11: Royal Society of Edinburgh Workshop Grant (Co-I) on ‘Scottish masculinity in historical perspective’
- 2007 (Jan-July): Visiting Fellowship, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Edinburgh
- 2005-07: ESRC Research Grant (PI): ‘Perceptions of worth and social status in early modern England’
- 2004: Philip Leverhulme Prize
- 2003: Huntington Library Fellowship (San Marino, California), additionally supported by the British Academy Exchange Library Scheme
Supervision
I am happy to supervise MLitt and Doctoral students on any aspect of early modern British social and cultural history.
Current PhD students:
- Hannah Telling, ‘Violent men and masculinity in Scotland, 1850-1900’
- Mary Jacobs, ‘Radical Manhood in the English Revolution’
- Rebecca Mason, ‘Married Women and the Law in Scotland, 1600-1750’
- Jade Scott, ‘A Woman's Rebellion: The Life and Letters of Lady Anne Percy (1538-1591)’
Completed PhD Students:
- Macleod, Catriona, ‘Women, Work and Enterprise in Glasgow, c.1740-1830’
- Cheng, Rachel: ‘“Something Most Vital”: the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift and the Woodcraft Folk, 1920-1929
- Felicity Donohoe, ‘Dancing with Scalps: Native North American Women, White Men and Ritualised Violence in the Eighteenth Century’
- Emanuel Buttigieg, ‘A Study of the Hospitaller Knights of Malta, with reference to Nobility, Faith and Masculinity, c.1580-1700’
- James McInnes, ‘Continuity and Change in an English Rural Settlement: Portchester, c.1500-1750’
Teaching
Undergraduate:
- Level 2B: People, Ideas and Things: The Making of Modern Societies, 1500-2000
- Honours module: Patriarchy, Sex and Gender in Early Modern Europe
- Special subject: Law, Crime and Society in England, c.1580-c.1700
Postgraduate:
- Gender, Politics and Power
- Gender, Culture and Text
