Marianne Kelly, Outstanding Graduate
I was always drawn towards the humanities but found it difficult to settle in a major. I ultimately chose history because it enabled me to combine my interests—namely political philosophy, geography, and literature—and understand them more fully by placing them within their historical context.
A highlight of my time as a history major has been researching and writing for Prof. Hardesty’s “Colonial America/Atlantic World” HIST 499, where I worked on a textual analysis of a 1596 political treatise that incorporates other English colonial discourse to explore Spenser's use of an agricultural metaphor. My topic, "Violence as Cultivation in Edmund Spenser's View of the Present State of Ireland," relates to its implications for colonial policy within the context of a prevailing association between land cultivation and civility. This course has shifted my perspective on writing as a tool for learning (rather than just a finished product) and provided the needed background and direction for postgraduate research.
After graduating, I am relocating to Ireland in the fall to pursue my M.Phil. in Early Modern History at Trinity College Dublin. I’m planning for my dissertation to build on what I learned during my HIST 499 research—using maps as my primary sources, rather than text. I want to take advantage of archival sources that I won't have access to after leaving Trinity and hope to research English colonial cartography to better understand how English ideologies of land usage and cultivation informed early colonial policy in Ireland and the New World.
When asked about the Outstanding Graduate, Professor Jared Hardesty said:
Marianne Kelly is one of the ten best students I have had in more than a decade of teaching. In my time working with Marianne, I have been consistently impressed with her intellectual curiosity, reading and writing skills, and maturity. She is a diligent and dogged researcher, often far exceeding expectations. Demonstrating her intellectual acumen, Marianne was one of 15 international applicants accepted into Trinity College Dublin’s prestigious accelerated MA program in Early Modern History. She has the analytical tools to be successful, make meaningful contributions, and take full advantage of the resources that Trinity offers young historians.