Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rhys Kaminski-Jones

@rhyskamjones.bsky.social

5.4K followers 4.8K following 4.3K posts

Celtic Revivalism, Romantic Celticism, Celtic Imperialism. Research Fellow at the University of Wales (CAWCS) on C18/19th travel in Wales, Scotland, and India. Cymrawd Oddi Cartref Book: 'Welsh Revivalism in Imperial Britain' (August 2025) He/They/Fo/Nhw

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · Aug 19

Publication day!!

Find out how C18th Welsh cultural revivalism positioned itself within an expanding British Empire and a newly-minted British state. Includes Welsh sources on slavery/abolition, settler colonialism, Indigenous America, and more

🚨🚨🚨 35% off all formats with the code BB135 🚨🚨🚨

Welsh Revivalism in Imperial Britain, 1707-1819

Reframes the study of Welsh cultural revivalism, highlighting transnational and imperial contexts.

boydellandbrewer.com

12 57 140

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 2h

None taken!

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 2h

(I say this as someone who has - in the wildly different context Of Welsh studies - been told that my saying I come from "West Wales" is a sign of my "colonised mindset" because I should say "south west Wales" 🙄)

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 2h

The wider thing is that I think sometimes "decolonising the mind" can become "we must historically/ideologically de-complicate the symbolism and culture entirely so it all makes sense", and I think that can lead to dead ends

2 1

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 2h

Ha! Re: 1790s-1840s, my gut feeling is that you won't really get early United Irish protestants using "Orange" positively, but that with the Ribbonism/Orangeism clashes in the C19th the colours get wider significance in the press, so by '48 it's worthwhile reappropriating orange. Guessing though 😆

1 1

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 3h

Yes, I do get the logical strangeness in the long historical view of having "Orange", inescapably monarchist and Anglo/Brit-colonial in its initial symbolism, appropriated to allow for the possibility of protestant republican Anti-British Irish nationalism, but that is what happened!

1 1

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 5h

Racking my brain trying to think of an example of protestant United Irishmen using "orange" positively in the 1790s (no Rhys, don't find a research rabbit hole for yourself...)

2 3

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 5h

I do now wanna read a study of "Orange" in Irish politics from the United Irishmen to 1848 tho. Obvs hanging the tricolour from the Wolfe Tone club in '48 is using orange to make a United Irish point, but that is interesting given relationship between the United Irish + Orange Order in the 1790s

2 2

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 18h

Mae'n dda, hefyd

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 18h

Cydweli! Y Moathouse

2 1

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 19h

Belle and Sebastian moreso - Beat Happening were at least more confrontational in their tweeness

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 19h

I will never get used to the fact that there's a tapas bar doing cocktails in my hometown now. Gwendraeth valley tapas and alcohol that isn't beer, whodathunk

2 17

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 1d

One of the things making it feel worth it that I volunteered to do extra work on my birthday by mistake.

1 4

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 1d

Ain't it nice when you meet the internet people irl and they still seem lovely (not just because you complimented me on here @mochyn.bsky.social @rchlcze.bsky.social, I promise)

2 9

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 1d

Diolch! I love that one too. But I'm always a sucker for a tapestry

1 1

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 1d

Ah thanks, really appreciated it!

I kept missing you and @mochyn.bsky.social at the first coffee breaks, glad I got to you in the last one!

1 1

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 3d

Sinn Féin in NI? 😉

3 5

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 3d

Also, Alan was right

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 3d

Refusing to buy lab grown meat / meat substitutes because yuck but ignoring *this* is a weird place we've ended up in

Bloomberg News @bloomberg.com · 3d

With selective breeding, chickens reach slaughter weight three times faster than in the 1950s. But that’s led to health issues like leg and skeletal defects, cardiovascular problems and muscle abnormalities with oddball names like woody breast syndrome and spaghetti meat.

How Generations of Selective Breeding Created Miserable Chickens

Genetic selection has made “probably the biggest animal welfare problem we have in all animal husbandry.”

bloom.bg

1 4 18

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 3d

And under our new rules at work I can't claim any travel in the vague direction of west Wales because it's now considered "part of my usual commute" 🙃

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 3d

Would be great, when plans change last minute, if you could go "Oh, maybe I could take an affordable train instead" wouldn't it? (Discovering an early return from Oxford to Swansea now £200+...)

2 14

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 4d

Absolutely! I know of straightforward errors in hugely important/well respected books, we just need to give ourselves the same grace we give "big names"

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 4d

He was around for that long?!

It's him saying out of nowhere he was going to shoot Tony Blair I mostly remember.

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 4d

Diolch yn fawr!

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 4d

If E. P. Thompson can seemingly hallucinate a significant source from out of his notes, we're definitely allowed some infelicities!

1 1

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 4d

I'd been doing so well at not re-reading the thing before I ransacked it for teaching quotes! 😆

I'll always remember searching for days for a news article cited by E. P. Thompson during my MA, and my supervisor laughing when I told him and going "oh, you tried to find that too? doesn't exist"

2 1