Elizabeth Makowski named Ingram Professor of History

By Alec Jennings
University News Service
April 6, 2010

Elizabeth Makowski, professor of history at Texas State University-San Marcos, has been named the inaugural Ingram Professor of History for 2010-2013.

During her tenure in the position, Makowski will work on a book to be titled Justice by Proxy: English Cloistered Nuns and the Lawyers, 1293-1540. The work concerns the efforts of English nuns to protect their rights and property through litigation at the dawn of the medieval legal profession.

Makowski has been a member of the Texas State faculty since 1993, teaching medieval and church history in the department of history and in the honors program. She obtained a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 1993; an A.M. degree in 1977 from Harvard University; and M.A. and B.A. degrees in 1976 and 1973, respectively, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She is the author of numerous articles, book chapters, and three previous books, including “A Pernicious Sort of Woman”: Quasi-Religious Women and Canon Lawyers in the Later Middle Ages (Catholic University of America Press 2005, and winner of the Distinguished Book Award from the History of Women Religious Conference.

The Ingram Professorship, which carries a $10,000 research stipend, was established by Callie Ingram and family to recognize a faculty member’s scholarly contribution to the discipline of history and to further the study of history at Texas State.

Frank de la Teja, chair of the department of history, said, “The Department is honored to have its first endowed professorship named for a family that has been such an important supporter of the university.”