Dr Cath Feely
@cathfeely.bsky.social
Cultural historian of modern Britain. Senior Lecturer at the University of Derby and Councillor of the Royal Historical Society. All views my own.
Pinned
The Trenches, the Tram and the Trolley Bus
A twentieth-century story
botheringmiancestors.substack.com
For Remembrance Sunday, a short reflection on the life and death of my great grandfather in the twenty years after his return. botheringmiancestors.substack.com/p/the-trench...
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
every single week they're throwing this guy a special oval office love-in that appears to be the presidential equivalent of letting your dog scarf an entire big mac and fries before that last trip to the vet
Pirro: "Mr President, there is in this room a group of people who love you, who believe in you, and who are so proud to be in this Oval Office and to be part of this amazing day because you have changed the course of America."
November 10, 2025 at 9:10 PM
every single week they're throwing this guy a special oval office love-in that appears to be the presidential equivalent of letting your dog scarf an entire big mac and fries before that last trip to the vet
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
Look at this great fund. £200 for really small charities to spend on boring things. Easy, quick to apply.
Link below.
Please share :)
Link below.
Please share :)
Boring Fund | Christina Poulton
Applications now open!
£200 grants available for small charities, CICs and voluntary groups towards some of those boring but hard-to-fund costs.
www.christinapoultoncreative.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Look at this great fund. £200 for really small charities to spend on boring things. Easy, quick to apply.
Link below.
Please share :)
Link below.
Please share :)
Poor Strathclyde #UniversityChallenge
November 10, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Poor Strathclyde #UniversityChallenge
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …
November 10, 2025 at 5:44 AM
Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
A beautiful #essay about family, writing, grief, history & searing & invisible contexts of the cost war by @cathfeely.bsky.social #mustread
For Remembrance Sunday, a short reflection on the life and death of my great grandfather in the twenty years after his return. botheringmiancestors.substack.com/p/the-trench...
The Trenches, the Tram and the Trolley Bus
A twentieth-century story
botheringmiancestors.substack.com
November 9, 2025 at 6:24 PM
A beautiful #essay about family, writing, grief, history & searing & invisible contexts of the cost war by @cathfeely.bsky.social #mustread
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...
Fedora man unmasked: Meet the teen behind the Louvre mystery photo
Fifteen-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux has become an internet sensation after an Associated Press photo captured him outside the Louvre on the day of a crown jewels heist.
apnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
the Duncan Tanner prize not only showcases the very best of early career scholarship in modern British history year after year, but the committee also give every entrant considered and generous feedback on their scholarship. it's win/win - do enter your work! academic.oup.com/tcbh/pages/e...
Duncan Tanner Prize 2025
The Duncan Tanner Prize recognizes outstanding scholarship amongst postgraduate research students in Britain and abroad. Entrants submit an article manuscript.
academic.oup.com
November 7, 2025 at 12:07 PM
the Duncan Tanner prize not only showcases the very best of early career scholarship in modern British history year after year, but the committee also give every entrant considered and generous feedback on their scholarship. it's win/win - do enter your work! academic.oup.com/tcbh/pages/e...
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 8, 2025 at 1:39 PM
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."
Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
For Remembrance Sunday, a short reflection on the life and death of my great grandfather in the twenty years after his return. botheringmiancestors.substack.com/p/the-trench...
The Trenches, the Tram and the Trolley Bus
A twentieth-century story
botheringmiancestors.substack.com
November 9, 2025 at 10:55 AM
For Remembrance Sunday, a short reflection on the life and death of my great grandfather in the twenty years after his return. botheringmiancestors.substack.com/p/the-trench...
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
My annual post about how the Morning Star reported the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...
hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...
November 9, 2025 at 9:02 AM
My annual post about how the Morning Star reported the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...
hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...
Making plans for the day and I think I've just said one of the most profound things to ever leave my mouth: 'There are things I will absolutely not do and standing in silence in Tapi Carpets for two minutes is one of them,'
November 9, 2025 at 9:28 AM
Making plans for the day and I think I've just said one of the most profound things to ever leave my mouth: 'There are things I will absolutely not do and standing in silence in Tapi Carpets for two minutes is one of them,'
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
Not enough attention is being paid to the effective closure of the bulk of one of the 2 or 3 most important public archives for modern British history. A terrible own goal for the BBC as a public-service agency.
WAC wrong-headedness
(that's the BBC Written Archives Centre)
I've brought together the key links for the campaign against the changes which now make independent and exploratory research at WAC impossible - and why this matters.
www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/wac-wrong-he...
(that's the BBC Written Archives Centre)
I've brought together the key links for the campaign against the changes which now make independent and exploratory research at WAC impossible - and why this matters.
www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/wac-wrong-he...
WAC wrong-headedness - Illuminations
John Wyver writes: Some of you will know that I have been very involved over the past months with attempts to reverse the wrong-headed changes to access at the BBC Written Archives Centre (above, with...
www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk
November 7, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Not enough attention is being paid to the effective closure of the bulk of one of the 2 or 3 most important public archives for modern British history. A terrible own goal for the BBC as a public-service agency.
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
'More than 1,000 staff will be affected as Cardiff University undertakes a “massive” restructuring of its professional services team.'
After all, it's a policy that is/has gone so very swimmingly well at every other university that's implemented it...
After all, it's a policy that is/has gone so very swimmingly well at every other university that's implemented it...
Cardiff restructures professional services, impacting 1,000 staff
University proposes to merge existing administrative functions into central hub but unions fear move will add to ‘enormous pressures’
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 8, 2025 at 8:15 AM
'More than 1,000 staff will be affected as Cardiff University undertakes a “massive” restructuring of its professional services team.'
After all, it's a policy that is/has gone so very swimmingly well at every other university that's implemented it...
After all, it's a policy that is/has gone so very swimmingly well at every other university that's implemented it...
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
UKHE does appear to have decided that a good student experience is more like the interchangeable consistency of a Nero than the incredible coffee in your local independent cafe.
Compulsory team teaching on every module is perhaps the biggest ever threat to the quality of teaching in UK universities.
It causes chaos on the ground for timetabling, ruins course coherence and turns lecturers into permanent supply teachers. It is pedagogically incoherent… 1/
It causes chaos on the ground for timetabling, ruins course coherence and turns lecturers into permanent supply teachers. It is pedagogically incoherent… 1/
November 6, 2025 at 9:42 AM
UKHE does appear to have decided that a good student experience is more like the interchangeable consistency of a Nero than the incredible coffee in your local independent cafe.
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
How is the digital creative? Check out Jamie Wood’s article ‘Creativity&Historical Inquiry in Digital Spaces’. It’s the penultimate early view article for @cathfeely.bsky.social &my special issue on creative history for @hisjournalha.bsky.social! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
November 6, 2025 at 8:56 AM
How is the digital creative? Check out Jamie Wood’s article ‘Creativity&Historical Inquiry in Digital Spaces’. It’s the penultimate early view article for @cathfeely.bsky.social &my special issue on creative history for @hisjournalha.bsky.social! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
It's remembrance remembrance day
November 5, 2025 at 7:40 AM
It's remembrance remembrance day
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
Mamdani: "We can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him."
November 5, 2025 at 4:38 AM
Mamdani: "We can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him."
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
sometimes I wonder what did academics do in the time before composing and sending hundreds of emails a day
November 4, 2025 at 6:09 PM
sometimes I wonder what did academics do in the time before composing and sending hundreds of emails a day
After a few days off with illness/annual leave, I am getting myself together today so if you are expecting an email from me you might get it today. Bear with me.
November 4, 2025 at 9:49 AM
After a few days off with illness/annual leave, I am getting myself together today so if you are expecting an email from me you might get it today. Bear with me.
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
China sought to halt research by Laura Murphy at Sheffield Hallam University into allegations Uyghur Muslims in East Turkestan were subject to forced labour. China has faced accusations that it has committed genocide against the Uyghur population. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
China intimidated UK university to ditch human rights research, documents show
Sheffield Hallam University apologises to Professor Laura Murphy for restricting her academic freedom.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 3, 2025 at 10:38 AM
China sought to halt research by Laura Murphy at Sheffield Hallam University into allegations Uyghur Muslims in East Turkestan were subject to forced labour. China has faced accusations that it has committed genocide against the Uyghur population. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
My mum is in surgery today and it should be pretty routine but if you do that sort of thing, can you say a prayer? More for her anxious and absent daughter more than my more than capable resilient mother.
November 3, 2025 at 2:59 PM
My mum is in surgery today and it should be pretty routine but if you do that sort of thing, can you say a prayer? More for her anxious and absent daughter more than my more than capable resilient mother.
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
Aftermath of war
The experiences & treatment of ex-servicemen, physically or psychologically affected by the First World War, seen through archives relating to the 'sweated trades' in the 1910s & 1920s
More sources on working people & disability digitised & indexed at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...
The experiences & treatment of ex-servicemen, physically or psychologically affected by the First World War, seen through archives relating to the 'sweated trades' in the 1910s & 1920s
More sources on working people & disability digitised & indexed at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...
November 3, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Aftermath of war
The experiences & treatment of ex-servicemen, physically or psychologically affected by the First World War, seen through archives relating to the 'sweated trades' in the 1910s & 1920s
More sources on working people & disability digitised & indexed at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...
The experiences & treatment of ex-servicemen, physically or psychologically affected by the First World War, seen through archives relating to the 'sweated trades' in the 1910s & 1920s
More sources on working people & disability digitised & indexed at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...
Reposted by Dr Cath Feely
Museum at Castleton Visitor Centre in the Peak District, Derbyshire, is to close after 20 years. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Castleton museum announces closure in December
The museum will no longer be able to use a space it occupies at Castleton Visitor Centre.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 2, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Museum at Castleton Visitor Centre in the Peak District, Derbyshire, is to close after 20 years. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...