Maureen MacLeod

  • Associate Professor, History
  • Department Chair, Humanities
Dr. Maureen MacLeod

Dr. MacLeod is the Program Director and an Assistant Professor with the History Program. She is a specialist in the history of Europe during the long nineteenth-century, specifically on France. Her research and current manuscript project focus on early nineteenth-century French female education, examining the role of education at the Maisons d'Éducation de la Légion d'Honneur and how the students were able to gain agency and create their own future—one that allowed them to make their own choice to enter the domestic world and engage in the private sphere, or to pursue their own career endeavors without restriction. 

Dr. MacLeod regularly teaches surveys and upper-level courses in European history, on the history of women and gender, and the Middle East. She is also interested in teaching and researching the history of science and technology. An avid traveler Dr. MacLeod enjoys visiting the places she teachers about and bringing back information and first-hand experiences to the classroom. 

Ph.D. in History at Florida State University, 2014 

M.A. in History at Wayne State University, 2008

B.A. International Relations and French Language at Michigan State University, 2005 

 

Current Research Project

Le Bel Esprit: Creating Female Independence through Education in Early Nineteenth-Century France

This project focuses on female education at the Maison d’éducation de la Légion d’honneur during the Napoleonic Empire in France. This study argues that the female students were able to gain agency through their unique educational experience, which allowed them to frame their own future. It also maintains that the opportunity for women to engage in the public sphere and embrace an independent lifestyle occurred earlier than many historians argue, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, largely because of the Napoleonic era educational institutions. This research also examines the curriculum and pedagogy of the school as well as students’ independent endeavors to harness their education for their own purposes. By examining student dossiers from little-explored archives of the Napoleonic era, this study traces the students throughout their lives, recording their accomplishments, which were not the norm for women in early nineteenth-century France.

Courses Taught 

HIST 101 European History to 1500

HIST 102 European History Since 1500

HIST 220 “Method in the Madness:” An Introduction to Historical Research

HIST 228 Problems in Women’s and Gender History

HIST 232 Early Modern Europe

HIST 233 Middle Eastern History

HIST 290 Honors History

HIST 295 Global Women’s Suffrage Movements

HIST 303 The Enlightenment

HIST 308 History of Nineteenth-Century Europe

HIST 309 History of Twentieth-Century Europe

HIST 311 World War II in Europe

HIST 314 History of Tudor and Stuart England

HIST 318 French Revolution and Napoleon

HIST 320 Historiography and Historical Methods

HIST 327 Modern Russia

HIST 495 Senior Seminar in History 

MacLeod, Maureen, “Schooling and Privilege: Schoolgirls at the Maison d’éducation de la Légion d’honneur during the Napoleonic Empire.”  Napoleonic Scholarship: The Journal of the International Napoleonic Society 7 (2016): 139-152.

MacLeod, M. (2013). Ecology (women in). In M. Stange, C. Oyster, & J. Sloan (Eds.), The multimedia encyclopedia of women in today’s world. (2nd ed., pp. 486-491). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2019-2021

William F. Olson Chair in Civic and Cultural Studies, 2019-2020

Dr. Fay T. and Dennis Greenwald, Esq. Faculty Development Grant, 2016, 2019

Mercy University Faculty Development Grant – Summer Research, 2016, 2017, 2019

Mavie Award for Best Faculty Advisor, History Club, 2016-2017

Walbolt Dissertation Research Fellowship, History Department, 2012

Heidi L. Millarker Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Feminist Scholarship, 2011

Ben Weider Research Fellowship, Institute on Napoleon and French Revolution, 2008-2010