Lisa McClain
Specializations
Renaissance and Reformation Europe
Gender Studies
Christianity
Education
Ph.D., University of Texas
M.A., University of Texas
B.A., University of Texas
Dr. Lisa McClain is a Professor of History and Gender Studies and has been on faculty at Boise State University since 2001. Her fields of specialty include the history of religion and the intersections of gender, religion, and popular culture. She is the author of the books Divided Loyalties? Pushing the Boundaries of Gender and Lay Roles in the Catholic Church 1534-1829 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018); Lest We Be Damned: Practical Innovation and Lived Experience among Catholics in Protestant England 1559-1642 (Routledge 2004); a chapter A Companion to Catholicism and Recusancy in Britain and Ireland: From Reformation to Emancipation (Brill, 2022); a chapter in the book Women during the English Reformations: Renegotiating Gender and Religious Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); and articles in journals such as Church History, Sixteenth Century Journal, the Catholic Historical Review, the Journal of Religious History, and Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature.
McClain serves as an expert on gender with the Inclusion Crowd, an international Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Think Tank made up of academics, social media influencers, authors, and industry leaders across five continents, brought together to address issues of inclusion across a variety of identity categories and intersections, especially in the workplace. The Inclusion Crowd is “focused on ensuring fairness, opportunity and representation for everyone within society; irrespective of background or characteristic.”
Her public history articles on the intersections of religion, gender, and sexualities for The Conversation, an editorially curated, nonprofit news organization with a monthly readership of 18 million and reach of 42 million through Creative Commons, have garnered over 327,000 reads.
- Pope Francis won’t support women in the priesthood, but here’s what he could do
- A thousand years ago, the Catholic Church paid little attention to homosexuality
- How the Catholic Church came to oppose birth control / Cómo vino la Iglesia Católica a oponerse al control de natalidad
Dr. McClain has been interviewed for national podcasts, such as the The Pride Podcast and Made to Motivate and is serving as a peer reviewer for Los-Angeles-based production company.
She is currently working on a new research agenda involving faith and LGBTQ+ history in Idaho and the U.S. Intermountain West, supported by a grant from the Osher Institute. Dr. McClain served as Director of Gender Studies at Boise State from 2002-2011, during which time the program received the Emerging Center Award from the National Council for Research on Women in 2010. Dr. McClain has researched the issue of domestic violence and sexual assault perpetrated against women with disabilities as part of her work in Gender Studies. Her work has been published by the Center for Women Policy Studies based in Washington D.C.
Dr. McClain is an activist for equity issues–particularly gender, disability, and sexual orientation—and has been named an Idaho Woman of the Year; an Idaho Woman Making History; and a Les Bois Awards finalist.
She served as Director of Gender Studies from 2002-2011, during which time the program received the Emerging Center Award from the National Council for Research on Women in 2010. Dr. McClain has researched the issue of domestic violence and sexual assault perpetrated against women with disabilities as part of her work in Gender Studies. Her work has been published by the Center for Women Policy Studies based in Washington D.C.
Dr. McClain is an activist for equity issues–particularly gender, disability, and sexual orientation–in academia, in Boise, and throughout the state. For her work, she has been named an Idaho Woman of the Year; an Idaho Woman Making History; and a Les Bois Awards finalist.
Dr. McClain is married, and she and her husband have a daughter and a son. Evenings and weekends will find her in the outdoors and engaging in athletic activities, especially swimming, hiking, snowshoeing, tennis, and racquetball. She also reads avidly in many genres and loves to cook. She enjoys quiz-type games and became a 1-day Jeopardy champion in 2006. She has recently begun to experiment with Role Playing Games (RPGs), both in the classroom and for fun.
Contact
Office: L177
Phone: (208) 426-1985
lmcclain@boisestate.edu
Spring 2024 Office Hours:
Tuesdays from Noon-1:15pm in L-176 (in the History Department in the Albertsons Library Building-enter through back of the building.)
Thursdays 12:30-1:30 on the 2nd floor of the Albertsons Library in the Special Collections and Archives (the “fishbowl” in the center of the 2nd floor–just look for the signs and come on in). Or by appointment.
Intro. to Western Civilization to 1648
Intro. to Gender Studies
Global Christianity
Gender and Sexuality
Age of Renaissance and Reformation
Saints and Sinners: Women in Christianity
History of Women in Early Modern Europe
Medieval and Renaissance Popular Religion and Culture
Foundations of Ethics and Diversity
Graduate Students
Rebecca Beesley
Michael Bronson
Shiann Johns
Eli Sauerwald
Erin Winterhalter
Selected Scholarship
“Underground Devotions: The Day-to-Day Challenges of Practicing an Illegal Faith”
in A Companion to Catholicism and Recusancy in Britain and Ireland: From Reformation to Emancipation, ed. Robert E. Scully, S.J. with Angela Ellis (Leiden: Brill, 2022).
Divided Loyalties? Pushing the Boundaries of Gender and Lay Roles in the Catholic Church for Three Centuries, 1534-1829
(Palgrave MacMillan, 2018)
“Elizabeth Cary and Intersections of Catholicism and Gender in Early Modern England”
in Women during the English Reformations: Renegotiating Gender and Religious Identity, ed. Julie Chappell and Kaley A. Kramer
(Palgrave MacMillan, 2014)
Lest We Be Damned: Practical Innovation and Lived Experience among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559-1642
(Routledge, 2004)