Thoughts and Ideas
This section is a space for me to consider issues within society and contemporary culture.
Here, I’ll introduce and further develop ideas I like to work with, explain and expand on issues that stem from previous projects, as well as consider immersive research and developing practices.
Study a PhD with Dr. Christopher R. Matthews
I specialise in conducting and supervising immersive research, but I’m keen to discuss various projects and research methods with prospective students as well.
Symposium - Concussion in sport: what do we know and what’s next?
A symposium recording of the Concussion in Sport seminar with two broad aims. Firstly, to help inform people who would like to know more about the risks of concussion and what is currently being done to support athletes, coaches and medical personnel to reduce the damaging effects of brain injuries. Secondly, to consider what problems still need further understanding and to develop ideas to shape the future directions of work in the area.
Academic Chatter with Dr. James Steele
James is an Associate Professor of Sport and Exercise Science at Solent University. In this video, we talk about teaching research methods, learning to teach using minimal preparation and what it means to try to take control of your career.
Academic reading: Part three
Here I discuss some of the key ways you can tell if you’ve gone deep enough with your academic reading. The main goal here is to develop a confidence in your knowledge which I described as ‘unshakable’. This means knowing what you know and also knowing what you don’t yet know.
Academic reading: Part two
In this video I discuss the need for planning and strategy when you approach academic reading. While you might enjoy reading, academic reading is not reading for pleasure. You’re reading with a job in mind – you’re trying to get shit done.
Academic reading: Part one
In this video I discuss the type of deep or ‘proper’ reading which is necessary to develop academic thinking. I discuss how such reading is the basis for good academic writing and outline how challenging and draining it can be when done properly.
Exploring drugs and doping with Dr. Paul Dimeo
Paul is a Reader at the University of Stirling and he’s a leader in the field of drug use in sport. Here, we discuss a bunch of issues connected to drug use, doping regulations and various logical inconsistencies regarding the ‘war on drugs’. We explore a range of examples and compare how drug use and users were, and are treated in very different ways to what has become normalised in the world of elite, and now sub-elite sport.
Structuring an analysis of complex problems
In this video I propose the idea of a complex of ideas, rather than complex ideas. This means we can bring together simple ways of thinking about a topic and structuring them in a way that helps us explain a complex issue.
In this regard, we’re talking about a complex (different things that are connected in some way) rather something being complex (confusing and hard to understand).
Getting immersed in football with Dr. Geoff Pearson
In this video I chat with Geoff Pearson from Manchester University about his ethnographic work in football. We cover a bunch of topics that will be useful if you’re considering doing similar work.
Love Fighting Hate Violence: Engaging people in academic projects with emotion
Emotional language is often avoided in academic research, writing or teaching. In conforming to this academic norm, scholars hope to demonstrate that their research is isolated from personal attachments and the biases these might involve.
While this can be considered an important element of the scientific method, it does not capture the realities of human life more broadly. In this article I discuss this in relation to an anti-violence project that a colleague and I co-founded.
Why do people explain learned behaviours using ideas connected to sex hormones?
This article is based on some extracts from one of my first academic papers. It uses key academic ideas to explain why people rely on often overly simplistic ideas about sex hormones as explanations for socially learned behaviours.
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