During the 1999-2000 academic year, Judith Holland Sarnecki, associate professor of French, published a review of Françoise Chandernagor's La première épouse in The French Review and delivered papers at the International Narrative Conference in Atlanta and the Midwest Modern Language Association Meeting in Minneapolis.
That was, however, only the iceberg-tip of a busy and productive year for Sarnecki, whose areas of scholarly interest include 20th-century French novels, plays, films, and popular culture, but who also teaches all levels of French language, as well as Freshman Studies; takes students to Senégal, West Africa, on the Francophone Seminar that she founded; and was an early and active member of the Gender Studies advisory board.
A graduate of Knox College, Sarnecki received her master's degree from the University of Iowa and the doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been a member of the Lawrence faculty for ten years. She has published articles on French author Marguerite Yourcenar and is editing a book of essays on Yourcenar's writing.
Currently, Professor Sarnecki is working with a group of students who have undertaken, as an independent study, to translate from French to English approximately 150 letters written by Milwaukee-Downer French Professor Amélie Serafon to a former French major who later became a French teacher herself. The translators include Claire Breaux, '01, Sarah Phelps, '00, Liz Ritzenthaler, '00, Erica Moore, '00, and Katie Jo Moore, '00.
Since 1998 Sarnecki has been a member of the special task force created by the Board of Trustees to study and make recommendations on aspects of student residential life at Lawrence.
Recently she has become interested in the subject of tattoos and has presented conference papers on such topics as the history of women and tattoos, how tattoos function in literature and film, and tattoos as a response to personal trauma.
Read more about Professor Sarnecki
View other faculty profiles from the president's annual report