Jane Clark chosen as a 2025 Gates Cambridge Scholar. Jane studied history and American studies in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, will pursue a master of philosophy in American history at Cambridge.
There, she will build on her undergraduate thesis project, which examined ideologies of imperialism in American children’s literature in the first half of the 20th century. She plans to explore what is distinctive about how American imperialism is depicted by adding a comparison with British children’s literature from the same period.
While global history and the study of empire tend to focus on the big-picture or diplomatic level, Clarke’s project focuses on these topics through the lens of pop culture and ordinary people.
Ultimately, her goal is to become a historian in a public-facing setting, which is why she was drawn to the Gates Cambridge program.
“It combined my interest both in doing the academic research and how that research can make an impact outside of the academy on the lives of everyday people,” she said.
Though she didn’t enter Northwestern as a history major, Clarke became one after realizing how her understanding of history had fundamentally shaped how she interacted with the world. Now, she hopes sharing her own work can help spark others’ curiosity, something she saw firsthand in both her work with the Northwestern Prison Education Program and when she presented at the department of American studies’ senior research symposium.
“To see how that research, when it was presented to a wider public audience, could spark conversations, help people think more critically about the world around them, ask really interesting questions — that’s the importance of doing research for me,” she said.
There, she will build on her undergraduate thesis project, which examined ideologies of imperialism in American children’s literature in the first half of the 20th century. She plans to explore what is distinctive about how American imperialism is depicted by adding a comparison with British children’s literature from the same period.
While global history and the study of empire tend to focus on the big-picture or diplomatic level, Clarke’s project focuses on these topics through the lens of pop culture and ordinary people.
Ultimately, her goal is to become a historian in a public-facing setting, which is why she was drawn to the Gates Cambridge program.
“It combined my interest both in doing the academic research and how that research can make an impact outside of the academy on the lives of everyday people,” she said.
Though she didn’t enter Northwestern as a history major, Clarke became one after realizing how her understanding of history had fundamentally shaped how she interacted with the world. Now, she hopes sharing her own work can help spark others’ curiosity, something she saw firsthand in both her work with the Northwestern Prison Education Program and when she presented at the department of American studies’ senior research symposium.
“To see how that research, when it was presented to a wider public audience, could spark conversations, help people think more critically about the world around them, ask really interesting questions — that’s the importance of doing research for me,” she said.
