Dr. Anne R. Larsen grew up overseas. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, she moved to Paris at the age of seven where she lived for 10 years, studying at a French primary school, at the Lycée de Sèvres, and finally at Clarendon School in North Wales. After teaching over a decade at Colgate University and the University of Tulsa, she came to Hope College where she taught French from 1984 to 2016. She was awarded two year-long NEH Fellowships for College Teachers, and the first Endowed Lavern ’39 and Betty DePree ’41 Van Kley Chair in 2011.

Principal AREA OF INTEREST

Professor Larsen’s main field of research is the literary writings and the intellectual history, biography and education of European Renaissance and seventeenth-century women, particularly in France.

EDUCATION

• Ph.D., Columbia University
• M.A., Columbia University
• B.A., French and Spanish, Hope College

View publications from Anne Larsen 

Books

Anne Larsen’s first books are on a mother-daughter team in sixteenth-century Poitiers (France):

• Hommage à Madeleine Neveu et Catherine Fradonnet, Dames des Roches de Poitiers, avec des textes d’E. Berriot-Salvadore et d’A. Larsen, La Rochelle: Rumeur des Ages, 1994
• Madeleine and Catherine des Roches, Les Oeuvres, A Critical Edition, Geneva: Droz, Textes littéraires français, 1993
• Madeleine and Catherine des Roches, Les Secondes Oeuvres, A Critical Edition, Geneva: Droz, Textes littéraires français, 1998 (awarded 1998 Edition Honorable Mention, Society for the Study of Early Modern Women)
• Madeleine and Catherine des Roches, Les Missives, A Critical Edition, Geneva: Droz, Textes littéraires français, 1999
• Madeleine and Catherine des Roches, From Mother and Daughter: Poems, Dialogues, and Letters of Les Dames des Roches. With Critical Introductions and Translation, The University of Chicago Press, 2006 (winner of the 2006 Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender’s Award for a Scholarly Edition in Translation)

Her most recent books are on Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–78), a Dutch Golden Age intellectual proficient in over a dozen languages:

• Anna Maria van Schurman, ‘The Star of Utrecht’: The Educational Vision and Reception of a Savante (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World), Routledge, 2016
• Anna Maria van Schurman, Letters and Poems to and from her Mentor and Other Members of her Circle, edited by Anne R. Larsen and Steve Maiullo, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, Toronto: Iter Academic Press, 2021 (winner of the 2021 Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender’s Award for a Scholarly Edition in Translation).

Edited Collections

• Renaissance Women Writers: French Texts/American Contexts, with Colette H. Winn, Wayne State University Press, 1994
• Women Writers in Pre-Revolutionary France: From Marie de France to Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun with Colette H. Winn, Garland Publishing, 2000
• Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance, with Carole Levine and Diana Robin, ABC-CLIO, 2007
  (Two Awards: Award for the best collaborative work published in 2007 from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women; The 2008 Roland H. Bainton Prize for Best Reference from the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference)
• Early Modern Women and Transnational Communities of Letters, with Julie D. Campbell, in the Series “Women and Gender in the Early Modern World.” Ashgate, 2009
  (Award: Honorable Mention in the category of Best Collaborative Project published in 2009 from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women)

Anne Larsen has published articles and book chapters on Madeleine and Catherine des Roches, Hélisenne de Crenne, Louise Labé, Marie de Romieu, Marie de Cotteblanche, Marie de Gournay, Marie Bruneau des Loges, Marguerite de Navarre, Marie Crous, Marie Meurdrac, Jeanne Dumée, Martine de Bertereau, Madeleine de Scudéry, Anne de Rohan, Dorothy Moore, Bathsua Makin, and Anna Maria van Schurman.

Current Projects

• “Anna Maria van Schurman: Self-Portraiture, Female Scholarly Identity, and the Republic of Letters.” Renaissance Quarterly, 72, No. 1 (Fall 2024), forthcoming.
• Book Review, Marguerite Buffet, New Observations on the French Language, with Praises of Illustrious Learned Women, in Early Modern Women, forthcoming.
• Martine de Bertereau and Marie Meurdrac, The Shaft and the Still: Two Women Scientists of Early Modern France, ed. and trans. Anne R. Larsen and Colette H. Winn. Submitted to The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe Series, # 42 on the list of volumes. 
• Anna Maria van Schurman, Eukleria, or The Better Choice: A Spiritual Autobiography and Apologia, ed. and trans. Anne R. Larsen and Steve Maiullo; with a foreword by Bo Karen Lee. On the list of volumes at The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe Series, #126.
• (With Steve Maiullo) “The Making of a Woman Scholar: Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678), Epistolarity, and the Republic of Letters.” Submitted to a Special Issue of Epistolographia: An International Journal.
• Book Review, Michelle DiMeo, Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle’s Sister, Sixteenth Century Journal, forthcoming.

Published in 2023–2024

• Ad Navseam Podcast, “Anna Maria van Schurman and Women’s Education,” Featuring Anne Larsen and Steve Maiullo, Interview by Drs. David Noe and Jeffrey Winkle, February 20, 2024, at 6:00 minutes following announcements.
• “Un Réseau de correspondance au féminin: Les lettres manuscrites d’amitié entre Anna Maria van Schurman et ses condisciples transnationales dans l’Europe du 17e siècle.” In Harmoniques littéraires: Mélanges en l’honneur de Jean–Philippe Beaulieu, ed. Diane Desrosiers and Renée–Claude Breitenstein, 257–72. Montreal: University of Montreal Press, 2024.
• ‘Dieu se servit de Jeanne d’Arc’: The Textual Public Identity and Political Agency of Martine de Bertereau, Baronne de Beausoleil (ca. 1584–ca. 1645).” In Subject/Object and Beyond: Women in Early Modern France. Essays in Honour of Colette H. Winn, ed. Nancy M. Frelick and Edith Benkov, 381–405. New York/Toronto: Iter Press, 2024.
• (With Steve Maiullo) “Anna Maria van Schurman, Letters and Poems to and from Her Mentor and Other Members of Her Circle: A Response to Aron Ouwerkerk,” International Journal of The Classical Tradition, 30 (2023): 227–231. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-022-00631-9
• (With Julie D. Campbell) “Early Modern Women’s Writing and French Secular Networks.” In Patricia Pender and Rosalind Smith (eds.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_314-4
• “Salons, Network Patronage, and the Self-Representation of ThreeFrench Seventeenth-Century Women of Science,” Early Modern Women, 17. No. 2 (2023): 274–98.
• (With Steve Maiullo) “On Editing and Translating the ‘Star of Utrecht’: The Autograph Letters of Anna Maria van Schurman (1601–1678) to André Rivet and Constantijn Huygens,” Women Writing, No. 4 (2023): 384–402. https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2023.2266076
• Book Review, Nina Rattner Gelbart, Minerva’s French Sisters: Women of Science in Enlightenment France, Early Modern Women, 17. No. 2 (2023): 394–97.

Published in 2022

• “My friendship with her is by no means an ordinary one”: The Friendship Alliances of Christian Hebraist Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–1678),” The Seventeenth Century, 37. no. 2 (2022): 255–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/0268117X.2021.1899039.
• “‘Kill off this hydra’s head’: The Emergence of Theologian Anna Maria van Schurman as Religious Polemicist.” In Portraits of Women Who Exemplified Themselves Through Their Faith (XVIth–XVIIth Centuries). Special issue of Cahiers des Recherches Médiévales et Humanistes(Journal of Medieval and Humanistic Studies), edited by Anne Larsen, François Rouget, and Colette Winn, 43.1 (2022): 329–51.
• (With Julie D. Campbell) “Early Modern Women's Writing and English Secular Networks.” In Patricia Pender and Rosalind Smith (eds.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).
• (WithBo Karen Lee) “Anna Maria van Schurman.” In Margaret L. King (ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018 (revised October 2022).
• Book Review, Mark Bryant, Queen of Versailles: Madame de Maintenon, First Lady of Louis XIV’s France, in Early Modern Women, 16, No. 2 (2022): 334–36. 

Published in 2020

• (With Colette H. Winn), “Writing/Creating in the Feminine in Early Modern France: Recent Initiatives to Uncover the Past,” Special Issue on “Writing/Creating in the Feminine in Early Modern France,” L’Esprit Créateur, 60. No. 1 (2020): 1–8. DOI: For additional information about this article https://doi.org/10.1353/esp.2020.0006
• “Marie Bruneau, Dame des Loges: Salon Conversation and the honnête femme,” L’Esprit Créateur, 60. No. 1 (2020): 100–12. https://doi-org.ezproxy.hope.edu/10.1353/esp.2020.0007
• Review of Julie Candler Hayes, ed. and trans., Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux d’Arconville. Selected Philosophical, Scientific, and Autobiographical WritingsEarly Modern Women, No. 2 (2020): 161–64.

Selected Conference Papers

• “The Making of a Woman Intellectual: Anna Maria van Schurman’s Letter Exchanges with Three Savants.” Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, 2024.
• “The 1633 Self-Portrait of Anna Maria van Schurman as Transactional Agency.” Virtual Conference, Renaissance Society of America, November 30, 2022.
• (With Steve Maiullo) “On Editing and Translating the ‘Star of Utrecht’: The Autograph Letters of Anna Maria van Schurman (1601–1678) to André Rivet and Constantijn Huygens.” International Symposium on Editing Women’s Letters Across Europe, 1500–1800, 10 June 2022, Queen’s University, Belfast.
• “‘Dieu s’est servi de Jeanne d’Arc’: The Textual Public Identity of Mining Engineer Martine de Bertereau, Baronne de Beausoleil.” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, San Diego, October 2021.
• “Salons, Agency, and the Self-Representation of Three French Seventeenth-Century Women of Science.” Women and Agency: Transnational Perspectives, c. 1450–1790, Virtual Symposium, University of Oxford, June 2021.
• “An Archived Network: Anna Maria van Schurman’s Manuscript Friendship Letters.” Virtual Conference, Renaissance Society of America, April 2021.

Languages

• French: Native Speaker
• Latin: Intermediate Reading competency
• Spanish and Italian: Reading and Speaking competency
• Dutch: Reading competency

Selected Awards and Fellowships

• Lavern and Betty DePree Van Kley Endowed Chair
• Hope College Ruth and John Reed Faculty Achievement Award, 2014
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for College Teachers, January–December 2005
• Visiting Scholar, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA Sabbatical, spring 2005
• Visiting Fellow, University of Notre Dame (sabbatical), fall 2004
• National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Grant, 2002–03
• NEH Institute on A Literature of Their Own? Women Writing: Venice, London, Paris 1550-1700. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001
• NEH Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars, January–December 1997
• Visiting Scholar, Department of Romance Languages and Literature, Harvard University, January–December 1997
• American Philosophical Society Travel Grants to Paris and The Hague, 1995 and 2002
• NEH-sponsored Folger Institute Weekend Faculty Seminar on Contextualizing Writing by Early Modern Women, 1995

Current Service to the Profession

• Board of Editorial Advisors, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature (1988–current)
• Board of Editorial Advisors, Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal (2018–current)
• Editorial Board Member for the Iter Press Other Voice Series (2021–current)