The Fourth Estate

Professor Farrelly worked as a full-time journalist for seven years, first for Georgia Public Radio in Atlanta, and then for the Voice of America in Washington, D.C., and New York.

Maura Jane Farrelly

Assistant Professor, American Studies;
Director, Journalism Program
Ph.D., Emory University

Current research
I am working on a book that considers the role that anti-Catholicism played in drumming up support for the American Revolution and — even in spite of this — the role that religious identity and experience played in moving colonial Catholics to support the independence movement. 

Favorite classroom experience
This experience goes back to when I taught high school. I had a student in my twelfth-grade Politics and Government course tell me that Thomas Hobbes had described the State of Nature as “solitary, poor, nasty, prudish and short.” (The actual quote is “brutish . . .”).

What makes Brandeis special
Students here really interrogate the texts I give them to read for class. I have had the pleasure of working with students at other schools who take the reading assignments seriously and work hard to understand them. But at Brandeis, many students go beyond this — they challenge what they have read, showing a level of intellectual confidence that I, myself, don’t always have.

Last book read for pleasure
"The Omnivore’s Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. It’s not the most recent book I’ve read for pleasure, but it’s the best of the recent ones.

Favorite world city to visit
There are still so many I have yet to get to! I had some amazing food in Tbilisi, Georgia, and Taxco, Mexico, though — and both cities are surrounded by awe-inspiring mountains that make for great hiking.