Centering Spenser

Centering Spenser is a digital public history project that explores the life of sixteenth-century English poet Edmund Spenser in connection to his residence at Kilcolman Castle, a colonial plantation in Ireland. The website seeks to address how Spenser’s lived experience at Kilcolman Castle influenced his writing and philosophies. The cornerstone of the project is a 3D virtual reality model of Kilcolman Castle that visitors can explore.

I began working on the Centering Spenser project in Fall 2020 as part of a History class entitled Ireland: Land, Conflict, and Memory. Taught by Professor Susannah Ottaway, one of the primary collaborators on Centering Spenser, the class encouraged students to suggest additions to and provide critical feedback on the project. I worked with a team of three other students to design a digital scavenger hunt for students within the 3D model of Kilcolman Castle that would show the complexities of the English colonization of Ireland. You can read more about my work on Centering Spenser in this blog post published by Carleton’s Academic Technology department.

Following this initial work, I continued to contribute to the project as a research assistant where I created an interactive timeline on Spenser’s life for the website. I combined my knowledge of Early Modern Irish history from Professor Ottaway’s class with research on Spenser’s life to show how his experiences related to contemporary events and culture.