JO ANN KAY MCNAMARA, FEMINIST SCHOLAR: A PIONEER IN TRANSFORMING
MEDIEVAL HISTORY by Dorothy Helly Jo Ann K. McNamara died in New
York City May 20, age 78, from complications from shoulder
surgery in March. Her most recent book is a translation of Paris
in the Middle Ages (2009), written by Simone Roux. Prof.
McNamara was a scholar of world-wide renown. Her most widely
acclaimed book, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two
Millenia, was published by Harvard University Press in 1996 and
reviewed in the New York Times Book Review by Antonia Fraser.
She argued that women as nuns have struggled through the ages to
create a separate life which subverts the traditional gender
roles assigned to women in every era. The body of her scholarly
work has focused primarily on the history of the early middle
ages and has ranged broadly over the areas of religion, gender,
institution-building, and an attempt to reperiodize and
reinterpret the years from 400 to 1100. Dr. McNamara was a
pioneer in making visible women’s ro