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For Immediate Release: October 31, 2006
UMW PROFESSOR WINS PRIZE FOR BEST BOOK IN EARLY MODERN HISTORY AND THEOLOGY
Fredericksburg, Va. – Allyson Poska, professor of history at the University of Mary Washington, recently won the Roland H. Bainton Book Prize in early modern history and theology for Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain. In this book, she explores how peasant women in northwestern Spain’s Galicia came to have significant social and economic authority in a region characterized by extremely high rates of male migration.
The Roland H. Bainton Book Prizes are named in honor of a professor of church history at the seminary of Yale University and ardent supporter of early modern studies. Each year, three prizes are awarded by the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference (SCSC) for the best books written in English dealing with three categories within the time frame of 1450-1660: art and music history, history/theology and literature. A fourth prize for reference works is awarded occasionally. Criteria for selection include quality and originality of research, methodological skill and/or innovation, development of fresh and stimulating interpretations or insights and literary quality.
Dr. Poska is an expert on women's history, colonial Latin American history and the history of early modern Europe, especially early modern Spain. She also is the author of Regulating the People: The Catholic Reformation in Seventeenth-Century Spain; the co-author of Women and Gender in the Western Past; and the recipient of a 2000-01 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a project on women in northern Spain. Dr. Poska earned a doctorate from the University of Minnesota and a master’s degree in history from Brown University, after receiving a bachelor’s degree in international studies from the Johns Hopkins University.
The Sixteenth Century Society is a scholarly society that is interested in the early modern era (ca. 1450 to ca. 1660) and welcomes scholars from all disciplines who have an interest in early modern studies.
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News release prepared by: Andrea Christie