Alexandra Shepard

{{Infobox academic|honorific_prefix=Professor|name=Alexandra Shepard|occupation=Historian and academic|title=Professor of Gender History|honorific_suffix={{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FRHistS|FBA|FRSE}}|awards=Leo Gershoy Award|spouse={{marriage|Jason Reese|2001|2019|end=died}}|children=1|alma_mater=University of Cambridge|thesis_title=Meanings of manhood in early modern England: with special reference to Cambridge, c.1560-1640|thesis_year=1998|doctoral_advisor=Keith Wrightson|discipline=History|sub_discipline={{hlist|Gender history|Social history|Cultural history|Economic history|Early modern Britain}}|workplaces=St John's College, Oxford
University of Sussex
Christ's College, Cambridge
University of Glasgow|notable_works=Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status, and the Social Order in Early Modern England}}

Alexandra Jane Shepard {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FRHistS|FBA|FRSE}}{{cite web |title=List of Fellows (February 2024) |url=https://files.royalhistsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/22170322/Fellows_February-2024.xlsb.pdf |website=Royal Historical Society |access-date=29 October 2024}} is Professor of Gender History at the University of Glasgow.{{Cite web|url=https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/alexandrashepard/|title=University of Glasgow - Schools - School of Humanities {{!}} Sgoil nan Daonnachdan - Our staff - Professor Alexandra J Shepard|website=www.gla.ac.uk|language=en|access-date=2018-09-03}} In 2018 Shepard was elected a Fellow of the British Academy{{Cite news|url=https://www.scotsman.com/news/education/three-scots-academics-honoured-with-prestigious-fellowship-1-4771415|title=Three Scots academics honoured with prestigious fellowship|access-date=2018-09-03}} in recognition for her work in gender history and the social history of early modern Britain.{{Cite web|url=https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/news/peopleprojects/headline_598330_en.html|title=University of Glasgow - MyGlasgow - MyGlasgow News - People and projects - Three UofG academics elected Fellows of the British Academy|website=www.gla.ac.uk|language=en|access-date=2018-09-03}} In 2019 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.{{Cite web|url=https://www.rse.org.uk/fellow/alexandra-shepard/|title=Professor Alexandra Shepard FRSE|date=2019-03-15|website=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|access-date=2019-03-15}}

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.{{Cite web|url=http://womenhistorylaw.org.uk/c/prof-alex-shepard|title=Prof. Alex Shepard|website=womenhistorylaw.org.uk|access-date=2018-09-03}} Her work has contributed to changing the understanding of working-class life over the past five centuries.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/12/give-female-historians-the-credit-we-deserve|title=Give female historians the credit we deserve {{!}} Letters|last=Letters|date=2016-02-12|website=The Guardian|language=en|access-date=2018-09-03}}

She is Co-Investigator of the Arts and Humanities Research Council 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.{{Cite web|url=http://www.swansea.ac.uk/riah/research-projects/women-negotiating-the-boundaries-of-justice/|title=Women Negotiating the Boundaries of Justice: Britain and Ireland c.1100-c.1750|website=www.swansea.ac.uk|access-date=2018-09-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180904052339/http://www.swansea.ac.uk/riah/research-projects/women-negotiating-the-boundaries-of-justice/|archive-date=2018-09-04|url-status=dead}} Shepard also leads a Leverhulme International Network Grant on “Producing Change: Gender and Work in Early Modern Europe", awarded in 2015.{{Cite web|url=https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Awards_made/2015_06_IN.pdf|title=International Networks – June 2015|date=2015|website=The Leverhulme Trust|access-date=3 September 2018}}

She has previously taught and researched at St John's College, Oxford, the University of Sussex and Christ's College, Cambridge.{{Cite book|title=Identity and agency in England, 1500-1800|date=2004|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|others=French, Henry, 1968-, Barry, Jonathan, 1956-|isbn=978-0230523104|location=Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire|oclc=71354443}} Her PhD thesis{{Cite thesis|last=Jane|first=Shepard, Alexandra|date=1998-01-01|title=Meanings of manhood in Early Modern England : with special reference to Cambridge, c. 1560-1640|publisher=University of Cambridge |url=https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272956|language=en|doi=10.17863/cam.19965|type=Thesis }} studied Early Modern student life at Cambridge University, and in particular how undergraduate students expressed their male identities. The thesis was supervised by Keith Wrightson.{{cite book |last1=Shepard |first1=Alexandra |title=Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-820818-9 |location=Oxford |page=vii}}

Awards

Shepard won the Leo Gershoy Award in 2016 for second book, Accounting for Oneself, published in February 2015; an annual prize awarded by the American Historical Association for outstanding works published on 17th- and 18th-century European history’.{{Cite web|url=https://www.historians.org/awards-and-grants/past-recipients/leo-gershoy-award-recipients|title=Leo Gershoy Award Recipients {{!}} AHA|website=www.historians.org|language=en|access-date=2018-09-03}} 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.{{Cite web|url=https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/archiveofnews/2016/october/headline_488141_en.html|title=University of Glasgow - University news - Archive of news - 2016 - October - American Historical Association award for University of Glasgow professor|website=www.gla.ac.uk|language=en|access-date=2018-09-03}} 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.{{Cite journal|last=Reinke-Williams|first=Tim|date=2016|title=Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status and the Social Order in Early Modern England, by Alexandra Shepard|url=https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/131/550/668/1748586?redirectedFrom=fulltext|journal=The English Historical Review|language=en|volume=131|issue=550|pages=668–670|doi=10.1093/ehr/cew071|issn=0013-8266}}

In 2004, whilst at Christ's College, Cambridge, Shepard was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize.{{Cite web|url=https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/sites/default/files/imported_pdfs/philip_prize_2004.pdf|title=Philip Leverhulme Prizes 2004|date=2004|website=The Leverhulme Trust|access-date=3 September 2018}} In 2017, Shepard received a Leverhulme Research Fellowships for research on family and economy in England, 1660–1815.{{Cite web|url=https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/sites/default/files/MRF_2017.pdf|title=Major Research Fellowships 2017|date=2017|website=Leverhulme Trust|access-date=3 September 2018}}

Personal life

Shepard married engineering scientist Jason Reese, latterly Regius Professor of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, in 2001.{{cite web |title=Obituary: Jason Reese |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/jason-reese-zrc0x5x2g |website=The Times |date=23 March 2019 |access-date=29 October 2024}} Their daughter Zoe was born in 2007.{{cite web |title=Obituary: Professor Jason Meredith Reese |url=https://www.eng.ed.ac.uk/about/news/20190329/obituary-professor-jason-meredith-reese |website=University of Edinburgh School of Engineering |access-date=29 October 2024}} Reese died of a suspected heart attack in March 2019.

Bibliography

The Whole Economy: Gender and Work in Early Modern Europe (co-editor with Catriona Macleod and Maria Ågren; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023) {{isbn|9781009359351}}
Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status and the Social Order in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) {{ISBN|9780199600793}}
Remaking English Society: Social Relations and Social Change in Early Modern England (co-editor with Steve Hindle and John Walter; Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2013) {{isbn|9781843837961}}
Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England, 1560-1640 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) {{ISBN|9780198208181}}
Communities in Early Modern England: Networks, Place, Rhetoric (co-editor with P. J. Withington; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000) {{isbn|0719054761}}