DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social

@drdeclankavanagh

Senior Lecturer in 18th-century Studies (Queer & Disability Studies). Author of *Effeminate Years* (2017); co-editor of *The Edinburgh Companion to Queer Reading* (2025). Views my own, not employer’s.

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DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· 10d

A poem about a house sale. Amongst other things. #verbena #pastoral #housesale #poetry

Verbena, in cloud
This wiry stem
lifts a galaxy of
stars
.
Courted nightly
by hawk moth. Camera ready
blazes bright
through hazy
patio door.
Transfixing alien
electricity in a cottage
from 1894
.
Though lately flipped
with speed
, greed
milking immigrants
seduced by modern
pastoral. Hands big
to dig and wreck
an English idyll
.
No roses or sweet peas,
just verbena bonarienis.
Cerberus of
the
Torrid zone. Showy
as a stilt walker clowning in the dark.
Curving with lust this flying spark.
Remember even
in the grief of winter
its black tumescence
winked with frost. Moaning to be
shriven by secateur. Sacrificed into violet.
Colour beloved by
Mary Magd
alene.
How greasy finger
s
stick in a wound
that won
’
t close
.
Scrolling is bleeding
since passion
is megapixel
.
In this firmament
of data
, our lost
umbels levitate.
Spirit
s of cloud
soaked
in carbon.
Captioned
for max profit:
‘house
sale: beautiful garden’.

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· 27d

Very excited to receive proofs for my forthcoming article in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, Issue 41. Coming out later this year all things going well. #disability #eighteenthcentury #memoir #GulliversTravels #MichaelClancy #JonathanSwift

'A picture presented to all our Senses': Vision in Gulliver's Travels (1726) and Michael Clancy's
Memoirs (1750)
DECLAN KAVANAGH

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Jul 12

Time for proofing #RadclyffeHall #TrumanCapote #Disability #QueerFiction

Picture of a draft of my article on disability and queer fiction with some words crossed out

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Jul 11

Really pleased with St James’ Gate up on my wall in my Canterbury flat. Art by: stevenfarrell.ie/password?srs...

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Jul 7

For Donna

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Jun 21

Really lovely to receive this kind and thoughtful feedback on the ‘Nostaglia and Place: Writing the University of Kent at 60’ workshop on Friday 19th of June University of Kent #DiamondWeekendKent

It was very friendly and accessible - I didn't feel pressured to share or participate in discussions but | still felt invited to. There was plenty of time to write in a guided way and to look at interesting archival objects I wouldn't otherwise have seen, and it was well-paced and structured.
I enjoyed the range of prompts and the way Declan gave the perfect amount of direction and support but also space for ideas to germinate. I really appreciated the helpful feedback. It was also a lovely group size that allowed for the sharing of ideas and a sense of honesty and intimacy in sharing.
Lovely open facilitator and supportive group

I loved today's session! There was a huge range of materials that prompted good questions. Very good balance of craft talk and inspiration talk. The environment was super welcoming, I felt comfortable sharing and thinking about things I might not normally.

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Jun 17

Paper that reads: HIGHLY COMMENDED
ACADEMIC ADVISING AWARD
This award is presented to:
DECLAN KAVANAGH
in recognition of being Highly Commended for outstanding Academic Advising and their valued contribution to supporting student success.
Dr William Collier
Deputy Director of Student Life
17th June 2026

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Jun 17

If there’s something I can never have enough of, it’s mugs! Congratulations to all of the winners. So lovely to see students recognise colleagues in this way.

Two cups: teaching excellence and outstanding academic advisor

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· May 31

The Japanese ambassador to the U.K. Hiroshi Suzuki pictured enjoying his recent trip to Folkestone is the level of diplomatic relation bliss that I want to see from all of our diplomats.

The Japanese ambassador to the U.K. Hiroshi Suzuki pictured enjoying his recent trip to Folkestone - pictured with a giant seagull in a seagull pose.

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· May 16

Wonderful to hear from panellists @kent.ac.uk ‘Humanity at the Crossroads’ event to commemorate Edward Said’s T.S. Eliot lectures at Kent in 1987. We heard recordings of Said and my gosh that man could articulate himself (beautiful cadence). I will be reflecting upon this for some time #EdwardSaid

Panellists at the event including Wadie Said (Edward Said’s son).

Dr Julie McCandless introduces the session

Panelist speaks about Lebanon with image of Edward Said throwing a stone (we think).

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· May 14

If you’re joining us @kent.ac.uk for our 60th anniversary celebrations in June think about registering for this #creativewriting workshop I am running on nostalgia and place in collaboration with the Special Collections & Archives, Templeman library #Kentat60 #universityofkent #ukhighered

Nostalgia and Place:
WRITING THE UNIVERSITY OF KENT AT 60
A creative writing workshop on the theme of nostalgia and place led by Dr Declan Kavanagh (School of Humanities) and hosted by the Special Collections and Archives, Templeman Library.
Are you a Kent alumnus who writes creatively or would like some dedicated time to do so in a supportive environment? Are you interested in the history of the University, its Canterbury campus and wider cultural life?
Join us for a bespoke creative-writing workshop (and archival treasure hunt) on Friday 19th of June at 3pm in the cosy reading room of Kent's Special Collections & Archives.
WHAT TO EXPECT:
We will explore some items from the University's 60-year
archive
(photographs; documents; ephemera and other treasures).
We will gently start to think about how these artefacts can help us tease out the connections between memory and place.
There will then be
some opportunities to free write using the archival
materials as prompts.
The workshop will conclude with reflections on what participants have written in whatever way feels most comfortable for them (sharing their work or sharing how it felt writing it or not sharing anything at all).
Kent
WE ARE KENT
PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE
A Diamond Weekend
Places are limited to allow for meaningful workshopping and due to room capacity.
For additional information please contact Dr Declan
Kavanagh: D.kavanagh@kent.ac.uk

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· May 13

Did AI write this? @skynewsrss.bsky.social

It started raining just as the PM left - perhaps symbolic of the leadership crisis he is currently facing.

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· May 4

I spent my BH Monday writing a lecture on how to approach writing reviews. This one from the New York Times made me laugh. I love overnight oats like I love me some W.B. Yeats: Second Coming #Irishliterature

"As discouraging as a breakfast of cold porridge."
Collected Poems, by W.B. Yeats (1896)

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· May 4

Happy bank holiday day or as I like to call it, writing new lectures day! #UKhighered

Coffee cup on window sill with cat ornament and ghost bin. Cathedral towers in the hazy distance.

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· May 3

I enjoyed this 8/10. On some level it’s about institutionalised and local forms of gender-based violence, which gets subsumed into a narrative about trauma and self acceptance. Cork comes off well, too #Hokum

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Apr 30

Examining a (wonderful) PhD in London today and how dare the city look so good!

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Apr 27

I’ve spent about ten hours preparing an MA seminar on blindness and memoir. A lot of it stems from an auto critical discourse analysis essay I wrote here: www.routledge.com/Finding-Blin... but I’ve removed all of the personal stuff & just kept it about that authors assigned #DerekJarman & #JohnHull

Laptop with a slide about ‘recording blindness’ picturing text and some cassette tapes.

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Apr 26

Lovely to host everyone at Darwin College @kent.ac.uk for our @bsecs.bsky.social council Spring Away Day. Wonderful discussions in person and online with some exciting #18century related developments in the offing. Safe home everyone!

Light display in Darwin College University of Kent - stunning brutalist interior.

Setting up the boardroom tech for the society’s conversations.

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Apr 15

Teaching today with the Dan Thompson Collection @kent.ac.uk Special Collections - students on the MA module Activism & Adaptation spent some time thinking about zines as reparative artefacts #Zines #Margate #queer

Front cover of zine ‘Rumors’ - person posing

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Apr 7

Good morning! This week is a lot of marking for me and trying to get writing projects sorted in the evening. Hope everyone has a productive week! #ukhighered #acwri

Picture of Canterbury cathedral in the sun - my home office view

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Apr 3

This would be me

A child with a hot cross bun stuffed in his mouth

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Apr 3

Proofs! Forthcoming chapter in *The Cambridge History of the Irish Novel* amongst stellar company & excellently steered by Prof Chris Morash. I’ll be doing these with some Easter chocolate to power me through #IrishLiterature #Novels #speirgorm #GulliversTravels

Lives and Adventures 2
Irish Men and the Eighteenth-Century Novel
DECLAN KAVANAGH
If novels by and about women in the eighteenth century initiate a new literary form for the exploration of interiority, the opposite case might be made for many of the novels by and about Irish men. The long-held belief that the eighteenth century inaugurated a new language of interiority or subjectivity associated with the joint rise of empiricism and the novel has been challenged by scholars such as Jonathan Kramnick who argue that for many writers in the period, the 'ostensible privacy or interiority of mental states is often not at issue' in their writing.' More particularly, the precarity of the novel-reading (and -writing) classes in Ireland, and their awareness of living in a culture in which definitions of a 'gentleman' were dangerously unfixed, seemingly produce literary forms that are constantly veering towards the unstable and anti-mimetic territory of satire, allegory, and the picaresque. One of the best known such works by an Irish writer (if not actually set in Ireland) is Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-67); unique as it might appear, it sits in a context of other works by Irish writers of the period.* Novels by Anglo-Irish men in the eighteenth century, more often than not, disrupted the very project of bourgeois masculinity that the new literary form of the English novel promulgated as the century progressed." Any survey of Irish men and the novel in eighteenth-century Ireland must thus begin by qualifying what is meant by Irish' and what is meant by 'the novel'. The designations of 'Irish' or "Anglo-Irish' have a contested history both in the historical context of eighteenth-century Ireland and in its ancillary scholarly field of Irish eighteenth-century studies. As James Ward articulates in his essay Irish and Anglo-Irish Writing' (2024):

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Mar 25

Important people in my neighbourhood today: PM, Royals; M15 knocking about plus the old bill. I couldn’t even post a letter because the postbox had been closed up. Impressive amount of security.

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Mar 22

Fortuitous moment to walk onto the high street just as the most reverend and right honourable Sarah Mullally completes her pilgrimage from London to Canterbury to assume her role as Archbishop of Canterbury #archbishopofcanterbury

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Mar 21

I am glad that I snatched this today #RachaelHouse #Queerjoy

Picture that says QUEER
JOY IS
AN ACT OF
RESISTANCE
Colours are pink and green my blue

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Mar 3

It’s all happening here during essay marking. Worf (from the future) has just phasered Captain Picard. We don’t know why. Also a Cardassian ship and a cat because why not. Tune in for an update (soon).

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Feb 28

What a pleasure to hear the legendary Jeanette Winterson read tonight at the Faversham Literary Festival. She spoke afterwards (without notes) on the topic of literature & reading in our times. She really knows how to hold an audience in the palm of her hand. Razor sharp & beloved #JeanetteWinterson

A man with long red hair standing with a woman with dark hair

An open book signed To Declan Jeanette Winterson Because We Try To Change Things

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Feb 27

Caught a beautiful moment today on the river Stour #Canterbury

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Feb 10

New study ornament. You won’t believe me but Troi and Geordi are both inside #StarTrek

DeclanKavanagh.bsky.social@drdeclankavanagh· Feb 2

Office door tat hits different