Peggy McCracken Receives Faculty Recognition Award

Congratulations to Peggy McCracken, Professor of French and Women’s Studies and Associate Dean of Rackham Graduate School, who received a Faculty Recognition Award this fall. These awards are intended for faculty early in their careers who have demonstrated substantive contributions to the University through significant achievements in scholarly research and/or creative endeavors; excellence as a teacher, adviser and mentor; and distinguished participation in service activities of the University.

A French medievalist of international stature, McCracken has made major contributions to the field of medieval romance and gender studies. Her work has challenged and redefined what gender meant and how it was constructed in the Middle Ages. She has published two ground-breaking books, as well as numerous articles in major refereed journals. The importance of McCracken’s first book, The Romance of Adultery: Queenship and Sexual Transgression in Old French Literature (1998), was evident in how quickly it became an authority in its field. It is cited now in any work that deals with medieval romance or historical medieval women.

Her second book, The Curse of Eve, the Wound of the Hero: Blood, Gender, and Medieval Literature (2003), makes an elegant and persuasive case not only for the significance of blood in medieval romance, but also for how that blood is gendered. She traces the particular ways that blood is gendered within medieval culture, as well as the anxious strategies used to maintain distinctions between the values of men’s blood and the values of women’s blood.

Her current book project, Medieval Iconology: Bodies, Images, and Narrative, asks how medieval authors used images to think and what they used images to think about.

McCracken’s teaching record in both Romance Languages and Literatures and Women’s Studies is outstanding, and student evaluations show appreciation of her teaching on many levels. “She was a joy to learn from,” says one student. Graduate students emphasize her ability to critique and disagree with their comments while maintaining a positive attitude. A much sought-after and highly regarded graduate mentor, she has directed or co-directed four doctoral dissertations, while being a member of six other committees since 1999.

As part of an initiative in global feminism, McCracken was the first faculty member to travel to Beijing in the summer of 2002 to teach a feminist theory seminar as part of a collaborative postgraduate certificate program organized by U-M, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Chinese Women’s College in Beijing.

McCracken has assumed major academic service roles in both the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and in the Women’s Studies Department. She was graduate chair in Women’s Studies from 2001–03 and chair of Romance Languages and Literatures from 2003–06.