Rate My Professor Jennifer McNabb

Jennifer McNabb serves as Department Head and Professor of History at the University of Northern Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Colorado at Boulder (2003), an M.A. in History from Bowling Green State University (1996), and a B.A. in History (summa cum laude) from Adrian College (1994). Before joining UNI in 2019, McNabb was a tenured Professor and Department Chair at Western Illinois University (2005–2019), where she also served as Associate Director of the Centennial Honors College. Earlier, she taught at Colorado State University (2003–2005).

Her research focuses on early modern England, particularly the legal and social processes of courtship and marriage during the long Reformation, early modern women and religion, and the social and legal history of marriage. Notable publications include the chapter “ ‘Many tokens passed betwixe them’: Negotiating Meaning in the Matrimonial Market of Early Modern England” in Religion and the Early Modern British Marketplace (Routledge, 2022) and “ ‘She is but a girl’: Talk of Young Women as Daughters, Wives, and Mothers in the Records of the English Ecclesiastical Courts, 1550–1650” in The Youth of Early Modern Women (Amsterdam University Press, 2018). She has contributed articles to journals such as The Sixteenth Century Journal and Women’s History. McNabb has authored several Great Courses productions, including “Renaissance: The Transformation of the West” (2018), “Witchcraft in the Western Tradition” (2020), “Sex, Love, and Marriage in Medieval and Early Modern Europe” (2021), and “Sex in the Middle Ages” (2023). A book, An Introduction to Medieval England, is under contract with University of Toronto Press. She has secured grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (2022, Co-PI) and UNI (2023, Co-PI). McNabb has held prominent roles such as President of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association (2015–2017), Chief Reader for the College Board AP European History exam (2018–2021), and facilitator for American Historical Association workshops.