Kenneth Reilly

- Assistant Professor

image of Kenneth ReillyTelephone:  519-661-3645 
Email: kreill22@uwo.ca 
Office: 1201
Office Hours: Tuesdays- Wednesdays, 12:00pm-2:00pm

Research Interests

Professor Reilly's focus is on environmental history in the United States, with particular attention to marginalized people in nature.

Teaching Philosophy

Professor Reilly believes that if he does his job correctly, students will want to learn more about the past. History shows that long standing structures and ideologies have shaped us, but that change is still possible. It is empowering and humbling. This is why Professor Reilly provides a welcoming and stimulating environment for you to approach and analyze the past. He asks, in turn, that you be willing to meaningfully engage with the course content. His passion combined with your engagement will reveal his goal as an educator. While his job is to teach you history, he seeks to turn you into a lifelong learner who understands how the past can help meaningfully explain where we are today and where we could be tomorrow.

Major Research Projects

Professor Reilly is currently completing a dissertation on the American history of blind interactions with nature in the 20th century. It asks how sight as ability and metaphor has shaped our discussions of what nature is for, who nature is for, and what we can achieve with it.

Professor Reilly's second project, based on his MA thesis, shows how the rise and fall of a plant called kudzu was deeply entangled with the climb of the New Deal coalition and the later rise of the neoliberal order.

Select Publications

“‘A Hard Strain on Imperialism’”: South Asian Resistance to the British Honduras Scheme,” Canadian Journal of History, vol. 56, no. 2 (2021): 92-109.