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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social

@drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social
3.2K followers 2.9K following 2.5K posts

Snr. Lecturer in 18th-century Studies (Queer & Disability Studies). Author of *Effeminate Years* (2017); co-editor of *The Edinburgh Companion to Queer Reading* (2025). Winner of Maidstone Lit Fest Poetry Comp 2026.

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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Thanks, Jo. I appreciate the support.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Thanks, Hilary. It means a lot.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Thank you.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I had a wonderful evening at the Maidstone Literary Festival last night, where I was fortunate enough to win the 2026 poetry competition and to read the winning poem. Many thanks to the judges and the organisers. I am very grateful for my work being recognised in this way #nationalpoetryday
Trophy which reads: winner Maidstone lit Fest poetry competition 2026.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It was such an honour to read my poetry at Maidstone Literature Festival tonight on #nationalpoetryday and to be among so many gifted poets at the sold out poetry night. Many thanks to everyone involved in organising the event. #MaidstoneLitFest
Picture of a long haired man with red hair in a yellow shirt with a microphone and poetry pamphlet. The scene is shadowy but the yellow shirt is excessively vibrant.
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John Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Think I asked this a while back but it anyone has any reading on auctioning the goods of the dead in 16th- and 17th-century London, and/or the role of bellmen and criers around deaths and auctions, I'd be very grateful for recommendations!
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Crazed Viking era
A picture of me
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
New article just published in ‘Èire-Ireland’ Journal on the queer Irish novel and death in the Irish diaspora #IrishStudies #queerliterature #queernovel #Irishdiaspora
Éire-Ireland
© Dying to Be Seen: AIDS, Diaspora, and the Queer Irish Novel
Declan Kavanagh
Éire-Ireland
Irish-American Cultural Institute
Volume 61, Numbers 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2026
pp. 259-283
10.1353/eir.2026.a1001973
Article
View Citation
Additional Information
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M a r c u s 🏳️‍🌈🇧🇧 @marcusjdl.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Legacy of Slavery - My family and Bristol
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June Caldwell @junec.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
My story 'Púca1' is over the line for 'Ag Dul Siar', an anthology published January 2027 by Hotel Doolin and Banner Books, to mark its 20th anniversary. Includes work from writers, musicians, artists, photographers, folklorists and cultural figures, whose work speaks to the spirit of the place.
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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 25/09/2026
I turned up at Waterstones in Worthing to sign some new stock of QUEER ORIGINS and was absolutely bowled over to be greeted by this in prime position in the shop window! It's so uplifting when booksellers get behind one's book. 💜🌈📚🦋🗃️ #book #books #booksky #authors #reading #histsci #queerhistory
Photo taken from outside a shop window. There's a copy of Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life: A History of Sex and Science by Ross Brooks displayed upright. Next to it is some text about the book in a wooden frame. It reads: 'Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life' 'Dr Ross Brooks' 'What did Darwin and Linnaeus really think about sex? In this iconoclastic history, Brooks shows how queerness was at the heart of evolutionists’ thinking about the natural world. From hermaphroditic slugs and sex-changing birds to male pigeon lactation, pregnant male seahorses, and bisexual pigs, Darwin and his fellow naturalists were privately in awe of nature’s sexual diversity. These encounters fundamentally shaped their understanding of plants, animals, and humans, even if they were never fully acknowledged in their published writings. Brooks radically exposes us to the hidden queerness of Georgian and Victorian science—and shows how nature has always been more sexually diverse than we’ve been told.'
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is how I mark work now. I always did but in the past would have let more slide. Now I insist, ‘where did you get this information?’. If that’s not legible the grade slides.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I’ve been wrestling with the villanelle form and am afraid it has broken me! It really doesn’t allow for any give! Anyway, here’s a poem about the oldest tree in Ireland (or so I was told). #villanelle #Kildare #Maynooth #Cromabú #poetry
Yew Tree at Maynooth
This yew remembers his back on its bark.
Strange melodies coiled in roots underground.
Skin lily white, cap's embroidered silk mark.
Fingers pluck lute strings, dull notes falling stark.
Sanguineous arils hang heavy and round.
This yew remembers his back on its bark.
Bréagadóiri tricks cast wide for a lark.
Russet-red fissure where poison is found.
Skin lily white, cap's embroidered silk mark.
Stanihurst's 'brainless boy' fighting monarch or Pale and Gael hero at last unbound?
This yew remembers his back on its bark.
Crom abú to St. Mary's in rebel arc.
To surrender sword, the Council confound.
Skin lily white, cap's embroidered silk mark.
Leave our shores! Now English-born must embark.
Under siege, stone walls artillery pound.
This yew remembers his back on its bark.
Skin lily white, cap's embroidered silk mark.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
LinkedIn is a necessary evil but that doesn’t make it any less evil. The AI posts with the template ‘something something - here’s the why - drivel drivel’ are shocking to behold.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Just so awful and unrelenting. I am so sorry.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
What a nice surprise - my contributor copy of Eighteenth-Century Ireland / Iris an dá chultúr Volume 41 2026 arrived. Belinda wants me to read it all in one go! #18thcentury #irishstudies
Tabby cat (the most beautiful) on an orange stool next to a volume of essays - orange cover.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
A way in for the UK, too?
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Dr Eleanor Shaw @eleanorshaw.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Fancy coming to work with me at the British Library? Part time for 18 months, collecting oral histories about covid and thinking about covid commemoration. www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/jobs/job/228...
nationalmuseums.org.uk
Jobs - National Museum Directors' Council Website
Association of directors and chief executives of the UK's national museums, galleries, libraries and archives.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Of course AI could wipe out humans. Just look at who created it.
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Rebecca Anne Barr @rabarr.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It's happening! 'Killjoy Comedy: Willful Women and 1750s Fiction' is coming out with @uvapress.bsky.social in February 2027. @sinsleyh.bsky.social says it is 'a ROMP'. I am *floored* @bsecs.bsky.social @asecsoffice.bsky.social #18thcentury #c18th www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10256/
A dour looking elite woman is sitting side-saddle on a horse, followed by a ridiculous supercilious little dog. The title of the book, in hot pink, is KILLJOY COMEDY.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Congratulations!
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It’s all just so dead behind the eyes
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
What a light. Complete solidarity with this woman.
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Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Solidarity with this Piddington resident ♥️✊ #Newsnight
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Joel Herman @joelherman.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The new issue of Eighteenth-Century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr is out now and open access (not sure if this is temporary or not). Use the link below to view the special anniversary issue. www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/toc/10.3828/...
liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk
Contents | Eighteenth-Century Ireland 41,
This article surveys writings on the history of eighteenth-century Ireland over the first forty years of the journal Eighteenth-Century Ireland/Iris an dá Chultúr. Commissioned to mark the journal’s fortieth anniversary, it adopts a cautiously ...
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Thanks
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Leading a creative writing workshop on Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) in Special Collections at Kent, writing objects and subjects big and small. Wed 28 Oct, 2pm until 4pm, Templeman Library. Email D.kavanagh@kent.ac.uk to reserve a place. #CreativeWriting #GulliversTravels
Writing Big and Small after Gulliver
A Creative Workshop
Dr Swift
First published in 1726, the first two books of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels turn on a single trick played in opposite directions: shrink the world around its narrator, and even the smallest objects and gestures of Lilliputian court life become petty and absurd; leave him ordinary-sized among the giants of Brobdingnag, and the plainest objects, and the bodies of the people who use them, become overwhelming, even repulsive, at close range. This workshop invites participants to think about their chosen objects or subjects in both big and small ways, using inspiration from the Special Collections holdings to write other worlds into existence.
Date: Wednesday 28 October 2026
Time: 2.00pm - 4.00pm
Venue: Special Collections & Archives, Templeman Library, University of Kent,
Canterbury
Led by: Dr Declan Kavanagh
Places limited - materials provided - all levels welcome
To reserve a place, email D.kavanagh@kent.ac.uk
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BSECS @bsecs.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
***BREAKING NEWS*** We have extended the deadline on our #CFP by 5 days to give those of you that missed our early deadline another chance! New deadline: 20 September 2026 Get writing! #skystorians #18thC 🗃️ www.bsecs.org.uk/conferences/...
bsecs.org.uk
BSECS Annual Conference
BSECS Annual Conference: the annual meeting of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies is Europe's largest and most prestigious annual conference
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Saints are changing gender left right and centre.
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Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
***URGENT PLEASE SHARE*** University of Brighton management have announced today that they ‘give notice of termination of all collective agreements’. This is a fundamental erasure of workers' rights. Management have announced the termination of all contractual documents, which includes:
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Completely wild
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Jessica R Valdez @jrvaldez.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
We're hiring in the long eighteenth century at LSU. Please spread the word and let me know if you have any questions. It's a wonderful department to work in! lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/LSU/job/0210...
lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
Assistant Professor - 18th-Century British Literature
All Job Postings will close at 12:01a.m. CST (1:01a.m. EST) on the specified Closing Date (if designated). If you close the browser or exit your application prior to submitting, the application progre...
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Noah Chaskin @chaskin.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Any of my disability studies folks have a favorite reading to introduce students to chronic illness and/as disability? (I use Susan Wendell's "Unhealthy Disabled" and it is good, but I'm doing a lot of updating this semester.)
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Jesus so sorry
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Horrific.
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The Irish Times @irishtimes.com · 13/09/2026
The five-decade love story of a forgotten Irish literary power couple
irishtimes.com
The five-decade love story of a forgotten Irish literary power couple
Padraic Colum’s death made front-page news in the New York Times in 1972, while F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway feared his wife Mary’s rapier wit
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Oh no hope you feel better soon
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Sainsbury’s have a good range of things that are like mince pies but better.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Grating
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
New article out now in Eighteenth-Century Ireland (vol. 41): '"A picture presented to all our Senses": Vision in Gulliver's Travels and Michael Clancy's Memoirs'. doi.org/10.3828/eci....
doi.org
‘A picture presented to all our Senses’: Vision in Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and Michael Clancy’s Memoirs (1750) | Eighteenth-Century Ireland
Sir, Some Friend of mine lent me a Comedy, which I am told was written by you: I read it carefully, and with much Pleasure, on Account both of the Characters, and the Moral. I have no Interest with the People of the Play-house, else I should gladly ...
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I always just think a lack of graduate jobs or job placements seems like a government problem not a university problem.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Yes.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Ours started with a cafe Nero - now the former bookshop is 100% cafe Nero.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Launch for Issue 19 of The Alchemy Spoon: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-launch... Register for a ticket. Online event. September 17th 7.30pm GMT #newpoetry #poetryreadings @thealchemyspoon.bsky.social
eventbrite.com
The launch of Issue 19 of The Alchemy Spoon
Readings from selected posts and an open mic
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Interesting
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Chris Terry-Enescu @cjterry.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Truly wild to have lived through moral panics about teenagers wearing hoodies and Muslim women wearing the head dress to now experience 'but is a large group of organised far right activists in balaclavas really that scary'
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Katherine Weikert @kateweikert.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A very quick turn around because of paperwork, but we're hiring a one year post in Modern British History! Please have a look and share widely with anyone interested! Happy to take informal queries at the email in the job posting! www.winchester.ac.uk/About-Us/Wor...
winchester.ac.uk
Work with us - University of Winchester
Explore the University of Winchester and discover your new career. We have a variety of positions in academic and professional services. Work with us.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
But small boats stopping isn’t going to do sweet F-all for those at Dover Port. They must know that on some level.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
And the crossings do need to be stopped because they are dangerous and lives have been tragically lost. That action needs to go hand in hand with the opening of safe and legal routes to asylum/migration. The system is clearly broken.
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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social @drdeclankavanagh.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I am disconcerted by the scenes in Dover and just left thinking that even if small boat crossings were somehow stopped forever today this wouldn’t materially impact upon any of the black cladded ‘protestors’ one jot. Scapegoating is about distraction. It’s a dead end.
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