History Professor Sara McDougall was awarded a nine-month fellowship by The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers to work on her third book, Listening to Jehanne: A Survivor’s Story from Late Medieval France.
McDougall is one of 15 scholars who will spend the year at the library’s main building on 42nd street pursuing their research.
“I heard about the Cullman Center when I first began to think about doing a Ph.D. and the professor I hoped to work with was a fellow there at the time,” said McDougall, who will be The John and Constance Birkelund Fellow. “Now, all these years later, it’s an honor to be able to work with the New York Public Library and utilize their amazing resources and experts in community with other writers and scholars.”
Listening to Jehanne tells the story of an estranged wife and migrant from Lorraine, France whose history stands in sharp contrast to popular conceptions about sex, gender and justice in the Middle Ages. It follows her previous works: Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy, 800-1230 and Bigamy and Christian Identity in Late-Medieval Champagne.
McDougall is the third John Jay professor selected for the Cullman Center Fellowship, following Erin Thompson (2022 – 23) and Lisandro Pérez (2004 – 05).
