Dr. Mary Blanchard is an Assistant Professor of History and currently serves as department chair at 鶹ý. She has been a fellow in the Lindsay Young Visiting Regional Faculty program at the Marco Institute at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville and the Wallace Johnson First Book Program through Western Michigan University. In 2023, Dr. Blanchard received grants from the Haskins Society, the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Durham University, UK, and the Laurel Family Fund to organize a three day conference held at Durham University in July of that year. During 2024, she became a Councilor at Large of the Haskins Society Council and joined the Editorial Board of Connections and Communities in the Middle Ages: The Haskins Society Studies in Medieval History, a new series at Boydell & Brewer. Dr. Blanchard is a social historian who specializes in the early medieval period.
She mainly focuses on the secular and religious leaders of tenth- and eleventh-century England. Her research examines the aristocracy, their family connections, and the extent nepotism actually had a role in the appointment of certain royal officials. Her first article in 2019 focused on these family connections (prosopography) and won the Paul E. Szarmach First Article award from the Richard Rawlinson Center at Western Michigan University. Other publications have explored what surviving charters reveal about the family dynamics of two English queens, and the activities of ealdormen as regional leaders. Currently, she is working on two book projects: her first monograph which offers a reassessment of the English aristocracy between 900 and 1070; and an edited volume exploring the theme of status, rank, or office in medieval England, 900-1200.
Beyond her research, Dr. Blanchard is a proud 鶹ýalumna, who loves teaching classes on Medieval Europe, Vikings (complete with classroom raids), and medieval saints' lives. She is married to fellow alumni, Professor Jacob Blanchard in the Biology department -- proof that science and humanities can get along! The Blanchards love to travel to old and new places with their daughter.
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