Matthew Kelly
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matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly
@matthewjkelly.bsky.social
3K followers 880 following 320 posts

Historian of Britain & Ireland at Northumbria University. Beginning new work on the history of ornithology in twentieth-century Britain.

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Political science 33%
Sociology 31%
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matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Dec 23
We can all identify with this harassed fella. ‘The Minor Official’ from George Birmingham’s ‘Irishmen All’ (1913). Illustration by Jack B. Yeats.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 17h
I want to go on X so I can shout at @BBCSport

But I won’t

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 18h
Dear BBC,

Team GB golds are great but all this waffle when live competition continues is really frustrating.

Yours etc.

Reposted by Dave O’Brien

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1d
Indicative of a) how communities can come to rely on universities as provisioning community services b) how a prestige project can become a liability c) how positive heritage narratives don’t pay the bills d) abt what constitutes legit use of student fee income

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
Shattered dreams: Why the battle for Sunderland’s glass centre has turned into a political flashpoint
Custodian University of Sunderland says renovation costs of £45m are too high and building must be pulled down. Not without a fight, say locals, who believe they’re being taken for fools
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 2d
Joan Wallach Scott piece, historian friends
jessicacalarco.com Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 2d
Eliminating gender studies courses helps to ensure that universities and other institutions will continue to protect men who benefit from the abuse of women and girls, either directly or through their connections to those who exploit girls and women for profit.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Gender studies courses are shutting down across the US. The Epstein files reveal why | Joan Wallach Scott
Texas A&M University is the latest school to end women’s and gender studies programs and teaching race. We know why
www.theguardian.com

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 2d
Full of entertaining excesses, thoroughly enjoyable essay about an author the literary heroes of my youth told me I should read, but I never really did.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
James Wolcott · What you can get away with: Updike Reconsidered
Betwixt and between is a strange place for any major writer to be more than a decade and a half after their death, and...
www.lrb.co.uk

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 2d
Finally gone back. Appalling editorial decision.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 2d
Balding drivelling on.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 2d
What is the BBC doing?!

Reposted by Pierre Bataille, Cathy N. Davidson, Devon Greyson , and 10 more

jessicacalarco.com
Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 2d
Eliminating gender studies courses helps to ensure that universities and other institutions will continue to protect men who benefit from the abuse of women and girls, either directly or through their connections to those who exploit girls and women for profit.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Gender studies courses are shutting down across the US. The Epstein files reveal why | Joan Wallach Scott
Texas A&M University is the latest school to end women’s and gender studies programs and teaching race. We know why
www.theguardian.com

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 8d
Have you read Frank Zelko’s ‘Make it a Green Peace!’? Some interesting material on exactly this theme…

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 9d
Utter disgrace that 2012-2022 student cohort being shafted in this way. Other cohorts pay RPI on the loan (bad enough), they pay +3%.

To think that all of us who work in the sector had a substantial proportion of our salaries financed through this system is deeply troubling.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 13d
Whoop. Brilliant to see this out, Jay. Congratulations!

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 10
Sitting by the window, arm and leg against the side of the train, can feel the flex in the structure of carriage as forces load and unload at 300 kmh. An expectedly physical experience.
At seat screen on Spanish train showing speed - 304kmh.

Reposted by Holger Nehring, Matthew Kelly

saraharens.bsky.social
Sarah Arens @saraharens.bsky.social · Jan 5
Please share: Fully-funded PhD opportunity at @livunigeog.bsky.social, supervised by my wonderful colleagues Dr Heather Sangster and Prof. Briony McDonagh and moi: 'From Empire to Ecology: Environmental, Colonial and Industrial Legacies of the Manchester Ship Canal' www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
From Empire to Ecology: Environmental, Colonial and Industrial Legacies of the Manchester Ship Canal at University of Liverpool on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - From Empire to Ecology: Environmental, Colonial and Industrial Legacies of the Manchester Ship Canal at University of Liverpool, listed on FindAPhD.com
www.findaphd.com

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 3
Sky was bluer & pinker than the image suggests.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 3
Posted a couple of dodgy iphone pics on here.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
Not all drystone walls are created equal.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
Long wondered about the significance of the oak woods at Manaton Rocks. How much of Dartmoor was once like this?

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
Yes, I wondered if ’Ran’ will ever face a reckoning; also, further evidence of how posh the high spirits of ‘the 60s’ were. Good time to be just down from Oxford. Touch of ‘Marquis’s Son Unused to Wine’ about the court case.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
Ah, it’s Wiltshire, I’d mentally placed it in Gloucestershire…

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
What did you think of the Battle of Castle Combe prog on R4 before Xmas? Fun but historically quite crude, I thought, a richer story to be told.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
But are they both the same side of the Glous Somerset border?

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
Very good!

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
Interesting…

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
Beneficiaries!

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
Did you hear Dyson’s rant about tax and his ‘family business’ when he was guest editor on Today? I do feel for his benefactors.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
You’re clearly right to include them. And I need hardly say, there are large arguments to be made about celebrity & land ownership, not least with respect to rewilding, nature restoration, ‘artisanal, small batch’ production, etc.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
‘The VCH-ETTC Nexus: Parochialism and Pastoralism and the English Imaginary’, forthcoming in MBH.

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Jan 2
Mr Hawkes was the protagonist of a recent episode of Celebrity Escape to the Country.

With his American wife, he wanted to buy a house in the Cotswolds.

Natch.

Reposted by Katrina Navickas

matthewjkelly.bsky.social
Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Dec 27
Have you seen this? Commissioned as part of an AHRC project. We were very pleased with it. For full experience, best seen on a digital TV through a browser in a dark room…

fawleyfilm.co.uk
Fawley
“… a powerful poetic reflection on the psychological role of our surroundings and our symbiotic relationship with nature …” (Sheffield DocFest jury statement) Weaving a multitude of voices, both human...
fawleyfilm.co.uk