Mary Martin McLaughlin Memorial Virtual Lecture 2021: March 10, 2:30 CST

Photo Credit: Dr. Elena Woodacre
Photo Credit: Dr. Elena Woodacre
by March 29, 2024

 

The Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program would like to welcome everyone in the UNL community and beyond to attend (virtually) our annual Mary Martin McLaughlin Memorial Lecture, next Wednesday (March 10) 2:30 pm. cst via zoom. The lecture by Dr. Elena Woodacre (University of Winchester, UK) will look at global queenship from the premodern to the modern and the way queens have used image and ritual to cement their identities and power. A full description below follows the registration link. What better way to celebrate Women's History Month than with a special presentation on queens and a celebration of Mary Martin McLaughlin, a landmark scholar on medieval women? Please also share with anyone you think may be interested! Just register to receive a zoom link and code. 

 (Register: https://unl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QxiQY9XuSiK4zvfe-IQzXQ )

Dr. Elena Woodacre is Senior Lecturer in History from the University of Winchester (UK). She will present “Image is Everything: Assessing the power of patronage, ritual and ceremony in the image crafting of queens," a multi-faceted examination of how queens the world over have consciously crafted an image of queenship using patronage, ceremonial form, and display. Her discussion ranges from queens in Choson Korea to Empress Wu Zetian, through western figures like Marie Antoinette and Queen Victoria, and concludes with a consideration of the modern monarchy.

Dr. Elena Woodacre is a specialist in queenship and royal studies. Her extensive publication record includes her monograph, The Queens Regnant of Navarre: Succession, Partnership and Politics, 1274-1512 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and several collections she has edited: Queenship in the Mediterranean (2013), The Image and Perception of Monarchy in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2014), Royal Mothers and their Ruling Children (2015),  Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Eras (2016), A Companion to Global Queenship (2018), Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers (2018) and The Routledge History of Monarchy (2019). She is at work on a biography on Joan of Navarre and on a short transhistorical work on global queens and queenship. She also organizes the ‘Kings & Queens’ conference, is Editor-in-Chief of the Royal Studies Journal and edits the Gender and Power in the PremodernWorld (ARC Humanities) and Lives of Women (Routledge) series.

The Medieval and Renaissance Studies program also recognizes Mary Martin McLaughlin’s landmark scholarship through this memorial lecture. Mary Martin McLaughlin, a native of Grand Island and a graduate (BA and MA) of the UNL History Department, was a scholar of women, children, family, and women’s religious communities in medieval Europe. She earned her PhD at Columbia University and taught at Wellesley, Vassar, and the University of Nebraska. Two books (with co-editor James Bruce Ross) published during her lifetime, “The Portable Medieval Reader” and “The Portable Renaissance Reader,” made her work a staple of college courses for decades. Her masterwork, “Heloise and the Paraclete: A Twelfth-Century Quest” (with Bonnie Wheeler) was published in 2002, and her edition of “The Letters of Heloise and Abelard” (also with Wheeler) was published posthumously in 2009. A generous private donor has enabled UNL MRST, with help from the, NU Foundation to offer annually the Mary Martin McLaughlin Memorial Lecture.

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