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3 books match the query 'Larsen, Anne R.'

cover of At the Crossroads of the Scientific Revolution: Two French Seventeenth-Century Women of Science

At the Crossroads of the Scientific Revolution

Two French Seventeenth-Century Women of Science

Martine de Bertereau and Marie Meurdrac

Iter Press, 2026

The first translation of the works of early modern French woman scientists Martine de Bertereau and Marie Meurdrac. 

The writings of mineralogist and hydrogeologist Martine de Bertereau (ca. 1584–ca. 1643) and alchemist and chemist Marie Meurdrac (ca. 1610–80) stand at the crossroads of the Scientific Revolution, a significant period between Copernicus and Newton that oversaw a new ferment in both the theoretical and empirical investigation of the natural world. Bertereau’s writings appear at the interface of a negotiation between an older form of knowledge, dating back to Aristotle, and a new scientific empiricism. She brilliantly addresses the relationship between knowledge and mining applications, as well as the roles of the king, the state, the market, and the public. Meurdrac published the first so-called chemistry book by a woman, which contributed to the various areas of scientific knowledge generally associated with alchemy in its development into chemistry, particularly medical cookery, botany, pharmacology, and cosmetology. 

Bertereau’s and Meurdrac’s works illustrate this age of transition, a spectacular time of growth in ideas and discoveries for both men and women. This first-time translation of their works is an important step in restoring the voices of these early modern French women scientists.
 
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cover of From Mother and Daughter: Poems, Dialogues, and Letters of Les Dames des Roches

From Mother and Daughter

Poems, Dialogues, and Letters of Les Dames des Roches

Madeleine and Catherine des Roches

University of Chicago Press, 2006

Among the best-known and most prolific French women writers of the sixteenth century, Madeleine (1520–87) and Catherine (1542–87) des Roches were celebrated not only for their uncommonly strong mother-daughter bond but also for their bold assertion of poetic authority for women in the realm of belles lettres. The Dames des Roches excelled in a variety of genres, including poetry, Latin and Italian translations, correspondence, prose dialogues, pastoral drama, and tragicomedy; collected in From Mother and Daughter are selections from their celebrated oeuvre, suffused with an engaging and enduring feminist consciousness.
 
Madeleine and Catherine spent their entire lives in civil war–torn Poitiers, where a siege of the city, vandalism, and desecration of churches fueled their political and religious commentary. Members of an elite literary circle that would inspire salon culture during the next century, the Dames des Roches addressed the issues of the day, including the ravages of religious civil wars, the weak monarchy, education for women, marriage and the family, violence against women, and the status of women intellectuals. Through their collaborative engagement in shared public discourse, both mother and daughter were models of moral, political, and literary agency.
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cover of Letters and Poems to and from Her Mentor and Other Members of Her Circle

Letters and Poems to and from Her Mentor and Other Members of Her Circle

Anna Maria van Schurman

Iter Press, 2021

Anna Maria van Schurman was widely regarded as the most erudite woman in seventeenth-century Europe. As “the Star of Utrecht,” she was active in a network of learning that included the most renowned scholars of her time. Known for her extensive learning and her defense of the education of women, she was the first woman to sit in on lectures at a university in the Netherlands and to advocate that women be admitted into universities. She was proficient in fourteen languages, including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Aramaic, Persian, Samaritan, and Ethiopian, as well as several vernacular European languages.

This volume presents in translation a remarkable collection of her letters and poems—many of which were previously unpublished—that span almost four decades of her life, from 1631 to 1669.
 
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