Aleksandra McClain
Lecturer
Profile
Biography
Aleksandra McClain BA (Yale), MA, PhD (York) is a medieval archaeologist who specialises in the study of churches, commemoration, and the Anglo-Norman period. She teaches in the archaeology department and in the Centre for Medieval Studies on British medieval and historical archaeology, buildings archaeology, landscape archaeology, and the archaeology of religion.
After completing her PhD research on church building and commemorative patronage in late-Saxon and Anglo-Norman North Yorkshire at York in 2005, Aleks worked for the department for a year as a fixed-term lecturer. She then went on to work for two years in the School of History at the University of
East Anglia, as a post-doctoral research assistant on the AHRC-funded
project 'A GIS-aided study of agriculture and the landscape in Midland
England,' which examined the historic landscape of Northamptonshire up
to the time of enclosure. Aleks came back to York as a lecturer in 2008, and since that time has been director of studies of the MA in Medieval Archaeology.
Departmental roles
- Director of Studies, MA in Medieval Archaeology
- Deputy Undergraduate Admissions Officer
- Departmental website contact
University roles
- Member of the university's International Forum
Research
Overview
Aleks' research has been focused on examinations of spatial and chronological patterns of church building, funerary commemoration, and elite patronage in northern England in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. Her wider research interests include transition periods and cultural contact, the material culture of the Anglo-Scandinavian and Anglo-Norman periods, social and cultural identity, the nature and material expression of medieval lordship, the development of the medieval rural landscape, the material and ideological relationship between religious and secular authority, and patronage of ecclesiastical material culture. She also has a particular interest in the north of Enlgand, and the development of northern local and regional identities in the Middle Ages.Current projects
- Cross slabs in northern England, 1000-1600 (in conjunction with Peter Ryder): a project seeking to systematically record and produce a full catalogue of medieval non-effigial commemoration in the northern counties of England. The project utilizes GIS to map these monuments, in order to aid the spatial and chronological analysis of patterns of production, distribution, style, and their relationships to elements of topography, political and ecclesiastical divisions, manorial structures, settlement and landscape, and the secular and religious built environment. In addition, the project explores significance of cross slabs to medieval concepts of social identity, memory, and competitive expenditure and display.
- Future work seeks to expand the study of the cultural,
social, and landscape contexts of churches and monuments to regions
elsewhere in England, as well as to explore contemporary commemorative culture in Normandy and northern France.
- Aleks is also pursuing research examining the negotiation of transition in the Anglo-Norman period, particularly focusing on recasting, through material culture, long-standing assumptions about the Norman Conquest in the north. The Anlgo-Norman period can be considered via a range of sources of evidence, including material culture, the built environment, and the tenurial landscape.
Research group(s)
Supervision
- Hank Squiers: Eleventh and twelfth-century castles in northern England
- Dav Smith: An archaeological examination of the 'Street' parish churches in Ryedale, North Yorskhire
- Jane-Heloise Nancarrow (CMS): The appropriation of Roman material culture and ideology in Anglo-Norman towns
Publications
Full publications list
- Forthcoming, 2011: 'The archaeology of parish churches in late medieval England' in Carver, M. (ed.), The Archaeology of Medieval Europe, Volume II, (Aarhus University Press)
- Forthcoming, 2011: ‘Local churches and the conquest of the North: elite patronage and identity in Saxo-Norman Northumbria,’ in Turner, S. and Petts, D. (eds), Early Medieval Northumbria: Kingdoms and Communities (Brepols)
- 2010: ‘Cross slab monuments in the late Middle Ages: patronage, production, and locality in northern England,’ in Badham, S. and Oosterwijk, S. (eds), Monumental Industry in Fourteenth-Century England (Shaun Tyas): 37-65.
- 2009: ‘Medieval grave slabs at Skipwith church’ in Hall, R., et al., ‘St. Helen's Church, Skipwith, North Yorkshire’ Archaeological Journal 165: 399-470.
- 2007: ‘Medieval cross slabs in North Yorkshire: chronology, distribution, and social implications,’ Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 79: 155-193.
- 2006: 'A medieval grave slab from Northallerton, North Yorkshire,' Church Archaeology 7/8/9: 131-134.
- In prep: 'Theory and interdisciplinarity in late medieval archaeology,' Medieval Archaeology
- In prep: ‘Elite patronage and the local church: negotiating transition in Anglo-Scandinavian and Anglo-Norman Yorkshire’
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In prep: Patronage and Power: Churches, monuments, and society in transition 900-1200
Teaching
Undergraduate
1st year
2nd year
Themes in Historical Archaeology: Late Medieval
3rd year
Assessed Seminar: The Archaeology of British Christianity
Special Topic: The Anglo-Norman World
Postgraduate
Medieval Settlement and Communities
Using Archaeology (Centre for Medieval Studies)
The Gosforth Cross (Centre for Medieval Studies)
The Vikings in Northumbria, c. 793-1200: Actors and Identities (Centre for Medieval Studies)
External activities
Memberships
- Executive committee for the Society for Church Archaeology, and manages the SCA website
- Member of the Society for Medieval Archaeology
- Departmental representative on the Yorkshire and Humberside ALGAO committee
Editorial duties
- Editor of the Society for Church Archaeology Newsletter
- Created and maintained website for the AHRC-funded project
Empire and Landscape in the Long 18th Century
