Kelsey Champagne

Kelsey Champagne is a second year in the History and Renaissance Studies departments. As an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins, she studied English and French literature, so her introduction into History was first based in literary and book history. However, she now focuses on Catholics in the British Empire in the 17th century. She is interested in how Catholics were communicating and circulating ideas, texts and people throughout not only the British Isles, but also the Continent and the North American and West Indian colonies. Currently she is studying how Catholics balanced their religious and national identities, and is challenging the idea that there existed a cohesive “British Catholic” identity by the mid-17th century.