Dr. Anne Larsen, professor of French at Hope College, has been awarded the "Translation or Teaching Edition Award" for her book "From Mother and Daughter: Poems, Dialogues, and Letters of Les Dames des Roches."
The University of Chicago Press published the book in its series "The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe" in 2006. The Society for the Study of Early Modern Women presented Larsen the award during the annual meeting of the Sixteenth-Century Studies Conference in October in Minneapolis, Minn.
The award citation states: "Madeleine (1520-87) and Catherine (1542-87) des Roches, mother and daughter, count among the most celebrated and prolific French women writers of the sixteenth century. Members of the emerging urban elite in a society torn by religious wars, the Dames des Roches boldly advocated female education and defended women's right to participate in poetic and political discourse. Anne R. Larsen's introduction to her exemplary bilingual edition clearly elucidates the historical context in which these early modern intellectuals and proto-feminists flourished."
The Society for the Study of Early Modern Women includes scholars and teachers from all disciplines who study women and their contributions to the cultural, political, economic, or social spheres of the early modern period. It consists of an international network of scholars who meet annually, sponsor sessions at conferences, maintain a listserv and Web site, give awards for outstanding scholarship, and support one another's work in the field.
Larsen was invited this fall to become the secretary of the society for a three-year term (2009-11), and to be nominated to one of its awards committees.
Larsen's translation was made possible through the support of a Jacob E. Nyenhuis Student/Faculty Cooperative Research Summer Grant from Hope during the summer of 1999, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Grant during the fall of 2004, when she completed the book. During the summer of 1999, Larsen worked with Michael Brinks, a French and Spanish double major who graduated in 2000. Brinks obtained his M.Div at Western Seminary, worked in student ministry, and is now studying at the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University toward a Master of Arts degree in medieval studies.